Movie Reviews : ‘Luckiest Man’: Alive With Fine Acting, Humor

Only a born storyteller as sincere and inventive as Frank Gilroy and an actor’s actor like Philip Bosco could get away with “The Luckiest Man in the World” (AMC Century 14), making its twist seem fresh, funny and poignant instead of a gimmick.

This fine little film is roughly a reverse take on “It’s a Wonderful Life.” In the beloved Capra classic an angel shows a despairing James Stewart all the bad things that would have happened to his family and his friends had he never been born. In writer-director Gilroy’s film almost everybody wishes apoplectic, ruthless New York garment manufacturer Sam Posner (Bosco) were dead. They almost get their wish; Sam barely misses a plane for Miami which crashes on takeoff, killing all aboard. Nudged by a sepulchral voice (Moses Gunn), Sam is confronted with what a monster he is and becomes eager to make amends.

The challenge, of course, is in sustaining Sam’s odyssey, which is where Gilroy and Bosco shine. (Bosco is best known to moviegoers as the financier in “Working Girl.”) The responses of Sam’s family, employees and colleagues are consistently imaginative, as full of humor as they are of pain, and Bosco is as convincing as the newly warm Sam as he is as the cold jerk of the past. Some encounters are a little more persuasive than others, and there are a few moments of hesitancy on Gilroy’s part as to how to wrap everything up. However, it’s quite easy to be beguiled by this wise and rueful fable.

This is a very New York film, with its emphasis on characterization rather than style, with its cast composed of actors rather than movie stars. The wonderful Bosco, stocky, open-faced and expansive, is well supported by Doris Belack as his understandably cynical wife; Joanne Camp as his perplexed mistress; Matthew Gottlieb as his confounded transvestite son and Yamil Borges as the beautiful young widow of the man who took Sam’s plane seat on standby. They and many others, including Joel Friedman as Sam’s paralyzed ex-business partner, are a constant pleasure. “The Luckiest Man in the World” is the kind of film that many people would enjoy; it has more substance than chic, and its sensibility and perspective are comfortably middle-aged. Gilroy still remains best-known for his 1964 Pulitzer prize-winning play “The Subject Is Roses” and for its 1968 adaptation to the screen. He also wrote and directed such satisfying and intimate films as “Desperate Characters,” “From Noon Till Three,” “Once in Paris” and “The Gig.”