Details
Movie Description
Insightful, moving performances make ONCE AROUND, Lasse Hallstrom's family comedy-drama, a unique and memorable film. The Bella family is a close as any--maybe too close. Sisters Jan (Laura San Giacomo) and Renata (Holly Hunter) are together on the day of Jan's wedding. Jan is marrying her dream man (Tim Guinee), yet still carrying on an affair with another man (Jim Redstone), while Renata has just faced the reality that her live-in boyfriend (Griffin Dunne) will never marry her. Renata soon finds herself living at home again, and regressing easily into the role of the failed but beloved daughter to smart, beautiful Marilyn (Gena Rowlands) and fair-minded Joe (Danny Aiello). Vowing to pull her life together, she takes a new job selling condo timeshares on the island of St. Thomas. There, she meets arrogant, gregarious, and overconfident Sam Sharpe (Richard Dreyfuss), a super salesman from a Lithuanian family, who is as madly in love with her as she is with him. It is this dedicated, loving, and eccentric relationship that, ironically, begins to pull the close-knit Bellas apart. What lies ahead for all is a complex patchwork of familial disharmony, undying loyalty, cultural tradition, tragedy, and triumph. The interplay between family members, their closeness and resentments, permeate an unusual story with characters that are each unique and unforgettable.
Synopsis
Lasse Hallstrom directs this dramatic comedy as his first American film. When Renata (Holly Hunter), the oldest daughter of a close-knit Italian-American family, is jilted by her boyfriend, she falls in love with Sam (Richard Dreyfuss), an abrasive and forcefully charming businessman. The family can hardly tolerate Sam's intrusion into its circle, but Sam proceeds forward, with Renata wedged in the middle, as they try to balance happiness on their own terms with psychological survival in the family.
Film Notes
Theatrical release: January 1991.
The film was shot on location in Durham, North Carolina; Boston, Massachusetts; and the island of St. Martin.
ONCE AROUND was shown on opening night at the Sundance Film Festival, Park City, Utah, in January 1991; it also screened at the Valladolid Film Festival in October 1991.
Malia Scotch Marmo is a graduate of the Columbia University Graduate Film Program. In addition to writing ONCE AROUND, she worked as a screenwriter doing rewrites on Steven Spielberg's HOOK.
Griffin Dunne, who appears in the film and is credited as a producer, and Amy Robinson, also credited as a producer, were the producing team behind Martin Scorsese's AFTER HOURS.
Industry Reviews
"...Beautiful to look at and full of richly realized characters....Halstrom seems to be drawn to so-called domestic subjects, treating them with humor, unsentimental clarity and a steadfast belief that continuity is one of life's givens..."
Los Angeles Times - Sheila Benson (01/18/1991)
Quotations
"This is my adventure and no one can take it away from me!"--Renata Bella (Holly Hunter)
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