‘A Simple Twist of Fate’ By Hal Hinson Washington Post Staff Writer September 02, 1994

Director: Gillies MacKinnon Cast: Steve MArtin; Gabriel Byrne; Alana Austin Children under 13 should be accompanied by a parent

When clowns write sad stories for themselves, the results are almost always disastrous. For "A Simple Twist of Fate," Steve Martin not only wrote the screenplay, an adaptation of George Eliot's "Silas Marner," but also executive-produced the project, creating for himself a character that is about as different from his typical roles as can be imagined. And if the exercise isn't precisely disastrous, it comes very close to it.

Directed by Gillies MacKinnon, this somber, depressing moral tale gives Martin the opportunity to play a dour recluse whose life is transformed when he agrees to raise a little orphan girl. His character is Michael McCann, a furniture maker in rural Virginia who runs off to the country after his wife reveals that the baby she is carrying is not his. Unable to shake off his disappointment, McCann becomes a humorless miser who skulks around town friendless and with nothing to live for.

Then one snowy night, McCann discovers a beautiful blond child sitting in his cabin. When he goes outside to determine whom she belongs to, he finds the girl's mother dead in the snow. To prevent the little girl from being sent to a foster home, McCann offers to take her in. McCann names her Mathilda, and his transformation into a loving daddy begins. The effects of the child on McCann are just short of miraculous. Before you know it, this bland, featureless creature is warming up formula and pushing a pram down Main Street, happy as a lark.

As Mathilda grows older, McCann experiences a kind of fulfillment that he had never dreamed possible. But there is a hitch to the proceedings. Mathilda's real father, John Newland (Gabriel Byrne), is a wealthy senator who lives just up the road. When the girl's mother was found, Newland was just beginning his political career, and out of fear that his name might be linked to the dead woman's, he kept his mouth shut. Now that 10 years have passed, Newland takes a renewed interest in Mathilda.

As a dad, McCann is so loving that he can just barely bring himself to discipline his child. But he is also poor, and when the Newlands start bribing the horse-crazy Mathilda (Alana Austin) with a mount of her own, McCann can't compete. Eventually, the story comes down to a court battle over the girl, who is forced to choose between her love for her surrogate father and her chance of being rich and living in a fancy house.

"A Simple Twist of Fate" may have a classical provenance, but it plays like a tawdry weepie from the '40s. Of all the actors in Hollywood, Martin would seem to be the least likely to turn himself into Stella Dallas. But, then, movie stars have all sorts of unrealized fantasies. Perhaps it's a stretch for a performer with such remarkable charisma to play someone who is without it. With his hair thinned and dyed a shade of lifeless brown, Martin does a skillful job of nullifying himself, and he does present a side of himself that has been glimpsed only briefly. But what a joyless accomplishment it is. As a comic, Martin soars, but here he has clipped his own wings.

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