The defence The Sentimental Softie
“Sincerity is not manipulation.”
The film risks embarrassment to make emotion communal, and that openness is harder than fashionable detachment.
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A Simple Twist of Fate
Family · Comedy · Drama · 1994
When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.
Movie details
A Simple Twist of Fate
“A twist of fate brought them something wonderful... Each other!”
1994 Family · Comedy · Drama 1h 46m
Critical arithmetic
The consensus, allegedly.
Scores change. Arguments endure.
IMDb
6.3 / 10
6.4K votes
Rotten Tomatoes
48 %
Tomatometer
TMDB
6.1 / 10
Community rating
External scores via OMDb · CC BY-NC 4.0. Values normalized for display; availability varies by title.
When Michael McCann is thrown over by the woman he loves, he becomes something of a misanthrope and a miser, spending all of his spare money on collectible gold coins. Living in the same town is an affluent family with two sons: John and Tanny. Tanny's a wild boy, whom John cannot control, and one night he breaks into McCann's house, and steals the gold and disappears, which nearly confirms McCann's distrust of mankind. But then, a mysterious young woman dies in the snow outside McCann's house, and her small daughter makes her way to McCann's house and into McCann's life and heart.
CriticWise case file
What this film says about your taste.
Not a recommendation score. A measure of how closely the film’s taste signals resemble yours.
The archetype split
Who fights over A Simple Twist of Fate?
For the defence
The Sentimental Softie
“You came to feel something, and you will.”
Read their case For the prosecution
The Cool Ironist
“Feeling things is a little embarrassing.”
Read their objectionThe split comes from the same five-axis model used by the test, not audience ratings or review sentiment.
Taste neighbourhood
Nearby on the taste map.
TMDB supplies the candidates. CriticWise reorders them by craft, strangeness, prestige, emotion, and pace.
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Where it lives
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Names above the title
The people responsible.
Cast & crew
Directed by
Gillies MacKinnon
Written by
Steve Martin
Steve Martin
Michael McCann
Gabriel Byrne
John Newland
Laura Linney
Nancy Lambert Newland
Catherine O'Hara
April Simon
Alana Austin
Mathilda McCann - Age 10
Stephen Baldwin
Tanny Newland
Byron Jennings
Keating
Court is in session
Put A Simple Twist of Fate on trial.
Two incompatible taste archetypes. One film. Read the arguments, then issue a completely binding cultural ruling.
The prosecution The Cool Ironist
“The strings are showing.”
Every cue tells you exactly what to feel and when, leaving sentiment to do the work character should have done.