‘It Could Happen to You’ at 30: Kindness, community and karma
Disclaimer: This essay was written in early 2024 and contains spoilers for the movie “It Could Happen to You.”
A few hours after I watch the 1994 romantic drama “It Could Happen to You” for the first time in many years, I come across an article that seemingly has nothing to do with the movie: Braylon Edwards, best known as a former star wide receiver for the University of Michigan and a few NFL teams, reportedly intervened at a Detroit YMCA when someone attacked an 80-year-old man. “At the end of the day,” Edwards said, explaining why he got involved, “that’s what you do.”
We’d all probably like to think we’d have done the same. Many of us maybe don’t know for sure without being in that situation. To Edwards, at least, helping was simply the right thing to do, and there could be no alternative.
The notion of right and wrong has no objective truth, and there’s no sense in analyzing here the difference between laws and morals and what is or isn’t necessary for society to function. But the idea of doing what’s right – and the simultaneous suggestion that 1. The majority of people believe in generosity and doing what you say you’re going to do and 2. There are still plenty of people and prominent parts of the world that can take the opposing viewpoint – has rarely been delivered with as much twinkly hopefulness or underlying frankness as “It Could Happen to You.” It’s a movie that easily gets forgotten when looking back at a movie year that delivered “Pulp Fiction” and “The Shawshank Redemption” and “Speed” and “The Lion King” and “Dumb and Dumber” and many more.
But in 2024, “It Could Happen to You” feels as timely as ever, even if, at a glance, its plot feels like a Capra-esque fantasy: Charlie (Nicolas Cage back before he was “Nicolas Cage”) is unhappily married to Muriel (Rosie Perez) and happily working as a police officer with his partner Bo (Wendell Pierce), who, it must be said, is Black, and shares Charlie’s commitment to their work. In this now-antiquated version of New York City, there is a clear, uncomplicated relationship between the cops and the citizens, and in one scene Charlie bravely takes down two gunmen robbing who he calls his “favorite Korean.” (Is there any movie from 30 years ago where every line of dialogue holds up? Doubtful.) Long before that, though, he and Bo need to leave a diner urgently after ordering only coffee, and Charlie, having only a couple bucks in his wallet, tells the waitress, Yvonne (Bridget Fonda), that he’ll come back the next day and either give her a proper tip or split the winnings of the lotto ticket whose numbers will be announced that night. Yvonne expects nothing from this; earlier in the day she has declared bankruptcy, the icing on the cake of a hideous marriage to the conniving Eddie (Stanley Tucci) that she can’t even afford to end, and she certainly doesn’t think the ticket has a shot at winning. Or, if it somehow did, that this stranger would come back to split the profits. Or that even after the ticket lost, he’d come back to leave a dollar or two as a tip.
Needless to say, Charlie wins, honors his promise, and changes all of their lives, while infuriating Muriel and pushing his own marriage to the end it had already arrived at some time ago. It certainly is possible to watch “It Could Happen to You” and take issue with the timing of Charlie and Yvonne’s romance, but this is a strength of the screenplay: Even though there’s no question what side you should be on as Muriel eventually fights for the entirety of the lotto winnings, it’s not completely unimaginable that there could be jury members who could be swayed by a legal argument (Richard Jenkins plays Muriel’s lawyer!) or their own romantic frustration into siding with Muriel, a woman whose husband enters a relationship with another woman almost instantly after being kicked out of his house.
But viewers spend the entire movie seeing what character means to each of these characters: How Charlie loves playing stickball with the kids in the neighborhood; that Muriel seems to prefer wealth over harmony; how Charlie and Yvonne use their newfound abundance to pay for a subway ride for countless strangers and, after Yvonne buys the cafe where she works, setting up a “Charlie Lang table” to feed people in need. Even if the circumstances of these relationships can be a little fuzzy, the dimensions to the people should be inarguable.
Yet I guess that’s subjective, as is almost everything. I struggle to understand how someone wouldn’t be moved by the end of “It Could Happen to You,” as donations from strangers (who read a New York Post article by a photographer played by Isaac Hayes about how Charlie and Yvonne, even in their darkest moment following their trial defeat, take him in and give him soup as he poses as an unhoused man) show how people support who they are even if the court, which is only as good as the people who interpret the information, doesn’t see it the same way.
I just know that I absolutely loved this movie when I first saw it at the age of 11 or 12. I still love it. As with several of my other favorite movies (1994’s “Quiz Show,” “Almost Famous”), it deals with important questions of how we seek or deny truth, and what side powerful institutions might land on for numerous, sometimes-complicated reasons. All of these movies are very entertaining and yet have a lot to say about how individuals pursue success or define their own narrative or at times fall victim to a system that is more flawed than we might want to admit. All of the movies show that success at the cost of honesty and goodness is no success at all.
It’s also worth noting that the movie is inspired by true events: There really was a cop who promised that he’d split a winning lottery ticket with a waitress (a friend, it seems, not someone he just met), and he really honored that promise. The rest of the plot didn’t happen. But it matters that the basic idea of giving because it was the right thing to do is true.
Back to doing what’s right and status: Braylon Edwards used to be a big name, and now I imagine he doesn’t get recognized a whole lot. I don’t know who he would vote for. His Wikipedia page, featuring numerous violent incidents and a DUI, hardly describes a saint. He was suspended from the Big 10 network for delivering harsh words as if he was merely being honest, something you can’t do as a media personality commenting on your alma mater. And let’s reiterate that everyone has their own definition of “the right thing.”
But there is a moderate chance that there are two kinds of people in the world: People who watch “It Could Happen to You” and feel heartened at the end, that selflessness and a communal sense of decency won, and greed and anger and cruelty lost; and, I guess, people who play the “what about” game, like “What about Muriel’s legal rights?” or “What about Yvonne’s responsibility to Eddie?”
I believe that the first group vastly outnumbers the second, if only because I can’t stomach the alternative. The last decade or so has given many reasons to fear that honesty and honor no longer have value in many eyes, or have been warped to the point of being meaningless in the face of disputes over facts and such an onslaught of lies that some no longer even seem bothered by them.
The night I rewatched “It Could Happen to You” was also Super Tuesday, when a certain former president won nearly every state but also greatly underperformed what was predicted and claimed. As I write this essay, the movie’s anniversary is still nearly five months away, or decades in this election year also containing so many trials and violations of the public and private trust by someone still claiming to want to lead, though never claiming to want to help.
“It Could Happen to You” is not a political movie, except for its messages about the folly of people who hoard money and the power in a large contingent of people who all want to support good people who still have gotten a raw deal in life. Because karma isn’t magic, the movie suggests. Charlie and Yvonne lose their case. If not for the people of New York, the couple would end the movie with nothing but each other, and they’d still be happy with that.
But that’s not what happens. Many, many people trust what they see and what they know in their heart and take action to do what’s in their power to help feel like they have a say in the balance of right and wrong in the world.
Of course, Muriel winds up broke and alone after the obviously sleazy Jack Gross (Seymour Cassel) marries her, empties her bank accounts, and takes off, and wannabe actor/professional leech Eddie can only get work as a cabdriver. Outside the courtroom, the movie believes that the bad guys will get their due.
Outside the movie theater, sometimes it doesn’t feel like that happens. But, at least for now, we can all have a say in that too.
A-
NEW: WANT TO SETTLE A MOVIE DEBATE, TALK ABOUT '90S FAVORITES, OR EVEN HAVE YOUR SHORT HOME MOVIE REVIEWED? BOOK A VIDEO FROM MATT VIA CAMEO
ORDER “TALK ‘90S WITH ME: 23 UNPREDICTABLE CONVERSATIONS WITH STARS OF AN UNFORGETTABLE DECADE”
Matt’s new book arrived Sept. 27, 2022, and Richard Roeper raves: “Matt Pais deserves four stars for reintroducing us to many of the greatly talented but often unsung heroes of 1990s film. This is a terrific read.”
ARE YOU A “SAVED BY THE BELL” FAN?
Order “Zack Morris Lied 329 Times! Reassessing every ridiculous episode of ‘Saved by the Bell’ … with stats” (featuring interviews with 22 cast members, plus the co-founder of Saved by the Max and the creator of “Zack Morris is Trash”)
GET 100 STORIES FOR JUST $4.99