One Fine Day

Working single parents discover that, despite all the things that can go wrong, everything is ultimately all right when family values and mutual understanding rule the day. So, when Melanie Parker (Michelle Pfeiffer) and Jack Taylor (George Clooney) coincidentally meet and both wind up with a similar problem of parenthood vs. occupational responsibilities, they try to find a mutual solution by working together on their separate predicaments. The relationship between Melanie's son, Sammy (Alex D. Linz) and Jack's daughter, Maggie (Mae Whitman), parallels and reflects the parents' relationship. One Fine Day purports to be a celebration of parent and child and prides itself, behind the scenes, on the fact that almost the entire crew of filmmakers and actors have had firsthand experience of exactly what this entails. Thank heaven for the exception to the rule, this time in the person of George Clooney, who, in deference to his fellow players' heightened awareness, admits that "They all had a great understanding of these things, of which I knew nothing because all I have is a pet pig."

Director Michael Hoffman sees the film as being in the tradition of classic Forties' romantic comedies like Pat and Mike, The Philadelphia Story, Adam's Rib, and It Happened One Night. Funny, I don't remember any children in those films.

I guess when all is said and done, dysfunctional families can sometimes be fun. So what's all this fuss about working parents and neglected children? Haven't they been to the movies?