Romancefest 2016: It Could Happen to You

I remember seeing trailers for Andrew Bergman's IT COULD HAPPEN TO YOU back in 1994 but I never got around to seeing it until now. And I'm glad I have. It's great!

Nicolas Cage stars as a cop married to a nagging wife (Rosie Perez). One day, inspired from a dream-time visit from her dead father, she instructs him to purchase a lottery ticket using the date of their marriage as the number. Later, Cage doesn't have enough cash on him to tip a waitress at a diner (Bridget Fonda) and vows to split his lotto winnings with her, if he should win.

And he wins!

And he's a good guy so he follows through!

Fonda's down on her luck after being ripped off by her husband, who she's waiting to divorce, if she ever gets enough money to do so, and Cage's kindness and forth-rightness begin to reawaken her faith in humanity, even as Perez attempts to ruin everyone's happiness with her social climbing and greedy grab for all the money, culminating in a court case.

People give Cage shit these days, I guess because of a string of movies that didn't make much money and also weren't very critically acclaimed, but this flick is a shining example of his appeal as a leading man. He puts everything right out there and does not hold back, which I guess makes him easy to make fun of. But this flick is about why all the people who would make fun of a dude like Cage are actually assholes, and why dudes like Cage are to be admired. So there.

The rest of the cast is good, too, including Wendell Pierce as Cage's loyal partner and Stanley Tucci as Fonda's shitty husband. Isaac Hayes is also on hand as a seemingly omniscient narrator who turns out just to be a photo journalist.

Of course, Cage and Fonda begin to fall in love, and that's what's at the core of this romantic comedy, but it's not quite as formulaic as it sounds. Sure, it has a cute premise and great "villains" in Perez and Tucci, but there's something extra here: the way the movie includes the public's reaction to the story as it appears in the papers brings in an added element that puts things in perspective. This elevates the flick from just screen-written characters doing what they need to do to make the plot happen, and brings the story into the arena of a fairy tale, kinda like IT'S A WONDERFUL LIFE.