Movie Review - Twice in a Lifetime (1985)

Twice in a Lifetime

Starring Gene Hackman, Ann-Margaret, Ellen Burstyn, Amy Madigan, Brian Dennehy, and Ally Sheedy

Directed by Bud Yorkin

Written by Colin Welland

Reviewed by David Wisehart

Twice in a Lifetime just ain't enough. Yes, it has stars galore, a semi-social conscience, and even a theme song by Paul McCartney.

What it doesn't have is a story.

The first third of the movie is spent opening birthday presents; the last third is devoted to wedding preparations; and the most exciting moment of the film comes at a Seattle Seahawks home game, watching fifty thousand screaming fans do The Wave.

Just sends the blood coursing through your veins, doesn't it?

The only truly interesting thing about Twice in a Lifetime is watching Gene Hackman transform a perfectly lackluster role into one of his finest performances.

Hackman plays common man Harry Mackenzie, a hart-working, hard-drinking, hard-loving, happily married man who finds himself in love with a middle-aged barmaid (Ann-Margaret) on his fiftieth birthday. Though he still loves his wife dearly, he recognizes this as his one chance at a sort of re-birth, a return to the happier, livelier days of his youth, a chance that only comes, well...twice in a lifetime.

The territory is familiar, and director-producer Bud Yorkin (veteran of such notable winners as Divorce American Style and Deal of the Century) seldom wanders from the beaten path of earlier and better films. There are no surprises in store for us, and few moments of true dramatic tension.

The film's strongest scene is one in which Harry's daughter (Amy Madigan) and wife (Ellen Burstyn) confront him and his paramour at the workmen's bar. His daughter is all dynamite and firecrackers, while his wife waits quietly in the shadows, avoiding confrontation. It is the only dramatic spark in the entire picture, a moment carried forcefully by Madigan in one of her best showings.

In fact, the acting is exemplary throughout. Brian Dennehy, that big bear of a man previously seen in Cocoon and Pale Rider, is convincing as Hackman's lifelong friend and drinking buddy. Ann-Margaret and Ellen Burstyn give solid support in their contrasting roles, and Ally Sheedy - as Hackman's other daughter - proves once again to be one of the most talented young actresses of the 1980s. Sheedy's performance is somewhat disappointing, though, in its brevity. With the exception of the (anti-) climactic scene, she is seldom on-screen, leaving us to wonder just how much was sacrificed to the cutting-room floor.

Still, this film is undeniably Hackman's. In his first true attempt at portraying a romantic lead, Hackman manages to be both sympathetic and strangely heroic in the face of self-induced adversity. He is a scaled-down Job, a modern-day Willy Loman of the steelworkers' set. Though his work in Twice in a Lifetime can't hold a torch to his paranoid wiretapper in The Conversation or his Popeye Doyle in The French Connection (two of the greatest films of the early seventies), Hackman almost saves this movie from vacuous oblivion.

Almost.

But Twice in a Lifetime is too technically muddled to let its strong ensemble carry the day.