Divorcees Juggle Kids and Career in One Fine Day

Journalist Jack Taylor (George Clooney) and architect Melanie Parker (Michelle Pfeiffer) are divorced New Yorkers trying to juggle high-powered careers and parenthood. Jack’s daughter Maggie (Mae Whitman) and Melanie’s son Sammy (Alex D. Linz) are kindergarten classmates. After a carpooling attempt gone bad causes them to miss their field trip, their parents have to spend all day trying to figure out what to do with them in the 1996 rom-com One Fine Day.

This is one of those movies that I’ve stumbled upon multiple times while channel surfing, and I finally decided to watch it from the beginning recently when it came up for Instant Viewing on Netflix. This PG-rated movie is part romance, part parent-child bonding film. Jack and Melanie have never met before this day, but they immediately clash as his lackadaisical tendencies set the day’s chaotic events into motion. Jack does not have primary custody, and although he loves his little girl, he finds it hard to be bothered with the minutiae of looking after her when his ex-wife drops her at his door unexpectedly. Control freak Melanie is the primary parent, but her focus on her career is so intense that Sammy sometimes gets left in the lurch. Both of them are extremely distracted, which causes problems for them as they try to pull off career-saving moves while keeping their kids busy.

Sammy and Maggie are both adorable and aggravating. While his primary problem is a propensity for putting objects in his nose, hers is wandering off quietly so that no one realizes until moments later that she has disappeared. Both are sweet-natured but oblivious to the trouble they are causing with their fidgety actions. Some of the mischief they get into is funny, while at other times it’s cringe-inducing. This is a big, dangerous city, after all, and both Jack and Melanie, who alternate supervising the kids, have a very difficult time keeping a close eye on them. Several scenarios would really be pretty alarming if they occurred in real life.

Of course, part of the development of the characters over the course of this single day is the adults realizing they need to be more attentive and, to a lesser extent, the kids realizing they need to stop running wild. The lesson doesn’t sink in so much with the children, but I would say there’s a least a hint that they will make more of an effort in the future. Then, of course, there’s Jack and Melanie, and while they mostly meet each other briefly before going their separate ways, they gradually get to know each other and begin to understand that their initial distaste for each other may have been misplaced.

In the midst of this jam-packed day, we see the four of them interact with a variety of people as Jack tries to find a key witness to back up something he printed in the paper and Melanie attempts to sell her latest design to a high-powered bidder. These brief interactions are fun, and I especially liked Charles Durning as Jack’s irascible boss and Ellen Greene as his key witness. However, this movie is mostly about the kids and their parents and how their being thrown together leads them to a better understanding of themselves and the possibility of more meetings to come. Epic romance this is not, but it is a cute movie showing that sometimes, a single day can tell two people quite a lot about each other.

World-Weary Violet Navigates a Broken Life in Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom

I love Epinions. One reason? It’s led me to a lot of great books. Sometimes the recommendation will come directly to me from a trusted fellow reviewer. Other times, I’ll stumble upon a review that intrigues me so much, I have to scour the library system in search of that title. It was the latter that led me to Susin Nielsen’s Dear George Clooney, Please Marry My Mom, a mid-grade novel narrated by Violet Gustafson, a cynical 12-year-old who is sick of seeing her divorced mom blunder her way through one bad relationship after another.

Violet and her affectionate five-year-old sister Rosie live in Vancouver with their 37-year-old mother Irene, a hairdresser who used to work in film and television. That’s how Irene met their father Ian, a philandering director who turned their world upside-down when he moved to Los Angeles with Jennica, the voluptuous young star of his latest series and soon-to-be mother of his twin daughters. That was more than two years before the beginning of this book.

In that time, Violet’s mom has focused most of her energy on trying to fill the void left by his absence, and Violet has had to grow up much too quickly. She’s tired of having so much responsibility on her shoulders and of dreading what her mom’s next date will bring. She wants to feel secure again, so she hatches an audacious plan to fix Irene up with the perfect man: George Clooney. After all, she had done his hair years ago, and he’d given her a photo with the message, “May Our Paths Cross Again.” Surely an earnest letter from this desperate word nerd will be enough to convince him that his true love awaits in Vancouver.

In some ways, the authentic- but precocious-sounding Violet is a very sympathetic narrator. Bullied at school herself, she is fiercely protective of Rosie, and generally she takes very good care of her. She has an important support system in the form of Phoebe, the calm, understanding girl who has been her best friend since kindergarten, and she often inclines the ear of her mom’s kind friend Amanda, the one person she knows whose romantic relationship gives her reason to hope that her mother might one day find happiness in that department. She wants the best not only for her and Rosie, but for her mom too.

But Violet is also a sulky, snarky child with major anger management issues. She resents being sent to counseling sessions that she sees as pointless. She is flat-out rude to Ingrid’s irresponsible friend Karen. She peppers her mom’s boyfriends with a barrage of sarcastic remarks and impertinent questions, hoping to nip one more train wreck in the bud. And she absolutely seethes in the presence of her father and Jennica. Her behavior toward them is often downright vindictive, and on one fateful occasion, her half-sisters get caught in the crossfire. Her extreme reluctance to apologize for her misdeeds is frustrating.

I couldn’t help feeling sorry for Jennica, despite her home-wrecking status. Now that Ian has clearly made a new life for himself, it’s apparent that Jennica wants to reach out to her stepdaughters, but Violet has nothing to offer but venom. Mostly, though, I empathized with Irene’s latest boyfriend, the one whose arrival sends the stretched-to-her-limit Violet into crisis mode.

Violet hates him instantly, declaring him a pudgy, balding, dorky punster who her mom shouldn’t even be giving a second glance. He owns a bath goods shop called Skip to My Loo. He wears kitschy hand-knitted sweaters. His name is Dudley Weiner. No, he won’t do at all. What she’s too stubborn to see is that while Dudley may not have supermodel looks or a suave demeanor to match, he does have something all of Irene’s previous suitors have lacked: the spirit of a gentleman. And Rosie absolutely adores him.

This aspect of the book reminded me very much of Much Ado About Anne, the second book in Heather Vogel Frederick’s Mother-Daughter Book Club Series. In that book, the girl in question lost her father in a car accident, and she deeply resents the intrusion of a mild-mannered accountant named Stanley who has inexplicably swept her mother off her feet. In both books, the contempt of the daughter is understandable, but it’s hard to see them act so viciously toward such guileless men.

Another book I thought of as I read was Leslie Connor’s Waiting for Normal, a beautiful mid-grade novel I encountered a couple years ago. Addie, the narrator in that book, had undergone unspeakable trauma in her first 12 years, yet she continued to embrace life with optimism and grace. I kept recalling her and thinking that Violet could stand to be a little more like Addie and a little less consumed by bitterness. Then again, letting go of anger is a big part of what this book is all about.

While I did struggle with Violet’s cruel streak, I mostly found this book very enjoyable. I like her sharp wit when it isn’t being destructively channeled, and in a book revolving around an attempt to connect with a movie star, it’s fitting that she fills her reflections with pop culture references. She talks of her compulsive need to alphabetize her mom’s video collection in a variety of ways; she compares a particularly bad day to Lemony Snicket’s A Series of Unfortunate Events; she uses techniques learned from Nancy Drew and Harriet the Spy to conduct stake-outs at the homes of her mom’s boyfriends. And toward the end of the book, she learns that her dad is currently working on a show that Jennica describes as “a cross between LOST and Touched By an Angel.” Now that sounds like something I’d gladly watch!

Her friendship with Phoebe is touching, and there’s something undeniably sweet about her interaction with Jean-Paul, a soft-spoken classmate who seems to enjoy her company and causes her to reconsider her fervent vow never to fall in love. The book made me laugh many times, but I liked it best when it moved me as Violet’s carefully constructed fortress begins to crumble, allowing her to slowly accept the light of others’ love. This is a girl who has reason to be wary, but it’s heartening to see her gradually learn how to trust again. And what role, if any, does George Clooney play in this healing process? You’ll just have to read it for yourself to find out…