When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.
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Reviews
Best movie of this year hands down!
the audience applauded
Masterful Movie
All that we are seeing on the screen is happening with real people, real action sequences in the background, forcing the eye to watch as if we were there.
Strangely, not one of the Steve Martin movies that spring to mind often, "A Simple Twist of Fate" seems to hit all the right notes. Tragic circumstances leave Martin embittered and reclusive until an orphaned child walks into his life. Cue the rehumanization process. Sure, it's a Hollywood movie, so the kid's gotta be adorable, but it's effective storytelling nonetheless. The movie grinds to a halt when the second half becomes a custody battle; I've never read Silas Marner, but you just know with that sentimental score, everything will somehow turn out right. The courtroom drama just feels drawn out.But at its heart, this is about a man and his little girl, and that hits me where I live.7/10
When facing losing your child in the court system, a parent suffers a roller-coaster of emotions.Here, two wannabe fathers are fighting for their parental rights to a daughter.One father had been highly regarded in the community and had unbounded political ambitions.The other father was a town drunk and miser who lived on the land of the other father.The movie is suspenseful at times, dark at times, light at times, and has a great ending.
As we all know, the real book, "Silas Marner" was first published in 1861 by "George Eliot". Well, in the time the book was published, women weren't "supposed" to write books like this. George Eliot's real name is Mary Ann Evans 1819-1880. Her understanding of the "Human condition" and the effects of loneliness on a person are greatly adapted into the book. If you read the novel, even though the wording of the book is different than modern English, well... that's part of the charm of the book. It takes you into a time when that's how they spoke. When considering the era of the book, and once again the adaptation of the movie "A Simple Twist of Fate", I believe that Steve Martin did an excellent job. Although... there's no substitution for the original work.
I have always enjoyed Steve Martin. It doesn't matter what he's in; I just admire his talent and I've been downright crazy about his humor since I first saw him do that "King Tut" thing back in the 1970s. Here, he tackles a more dramatic role with so much warmth and sincerity, and he even manages to inject some comic moments in his typical style.To know that he also wrote this screenplay is not surprising, as he's a gifted writer, as well. The story in this film is tremendously life-affirming. If nothing else, it illustrates how even the most serious or threatening situation can turn around, just like that, in the blink of an eye. As with M. Night Shyamalan's "Signs," Christians might be thinking of Romans 8:28 when they see this film -- how events, good or bad, are so often intricately orchestrated to a better end that we really can't see coming.My favorite point in the film is when Steve Martin's character, having just been robbed of the fortune he's amassed in gold coins (he stored his cash in these coins rather than in a bank), sees this sweet toddler girl wandering aimlessly into his home as an event that was simply meant to be, as the "gift" he is given because his money has been taken away. His faithful perspective is greatly rewarded.
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