Aug 06, 2006 03:10 PM
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"Phyllis Penzo was a waitress at Sal's Pizzeria in Yonkers, New York, for twenty-four years. During that long tenure, she saw nice customers, difficult customers, generous tippers, and skinflints. Robert Cunningham, a thirty-year police veteran, was a regular diner at Sal's, where he liked to order linguine with clam sauce. Cunningham was making a sort of joke on Friday evening, March 30, 1984, when he offered his favorite waitress an unusual tip: a half-share in a lottery ticket. Each picked three of the six numbers; Cunningham walked across the street and bought their ticket. Phyllis laughed, then forgot the incident until the next night, when the detective walked into Sal's Pizzeria after work with the winning ticket triumphantly clutched in his hand. It was worth six million dollars. Cunningham, who ordinarily might have left a couple of dollars tip on the restaurant table, left Phyllis half the share: three million dollars."
This story really happened. And then, Hollywood turned the story into a movie It Could Happen To You (1994) starring Nicholas Cage and Bridget Fonda playing the above characters.
The plot has been modified and deepened in the movie. Nicholas Cage the cop promises half the winnings if the ticket wins to Bridget, as he doesnt have the money for a tip on him. He's shown as married to a gold-digger hairdresser Muriel, played by Rosie Perez with a grating nasal Brooklyn accent. Yvonne (Bridget Fonda) is a single waitress, her dreams of being an actress having evaporated, she struggles along to make a living. The three performances are pretty good - Cage's sincere soft-spoken cop is one of his best performances, evokes sympathy without overdoing it. The two main characters are the kind who believe in people, and goodness of heart being its own reward. Rosie Perez is a contrast as a thoroughly shallow, ignorant, self-centred woman, scheming but in a comical way. I liked this colorful character - typical Brooklynite down to her mannerisms, dress, speech and accent - which is a very urban hodge-podge mix of various ethnic lineages and social classes and pretensions.
It is a sympathetic story of some well-deserved good luck falling unexpectedly upon two people who never dreamt very big. Though the movie starts with the lottery winning, it moves on to the media spotlight on these two wrecking their lives. Just when it seems they have lost all they won and more, comes the real miracle - one that heals their faith in a large, sweeping stroke.
Indirectly, its also a tip of the directorial hat to good ol' New York, the city of a million dreams and its ever-hopeful throngs.
