MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Once Around’ a Rich Family Comedy

On an ordinary week, with nothing more to worry about than who’d win the Super Bowl, “Once Around” (at selected theaters) would be a warm, wonderfully eccentric seriocomic diversion. This week, with the world erupting and everyone’s nerves in a vice, its image of a loving, indissoluble family--a patriarchy where father really does know best--becomes so poignantly seductive it’s almost painful.

“My Life as a Dog,” Swedish director Lasse Hallstrom’s lyric 1987 success, was a fresh and powerful vision of childhood on the knife edge between love and loss. Although Malia Scotch Marmo’s fine first feature screenplay for “Once Around” has a way to go before it reaches the delicacy and subtlety of that classic, she has given Hallstrom an intriguing problem to work with: What do you do when you can’t bear the man your daughter loves? Hallstrom has taken off from that point to make an entirely unhackneyed film, beautiful to look at and full of richly realized characters.

The Bellas are a strongly emotional family headed by Joe (Danny Aiello), a successful suburban Boston contractor and his splendid wife Marilyn (Gena Rowlands), who are parents so uninhibitedly affectionate that their two grown daughters still climb into their big bed to snuggle when their spirits are wounded.

Daughter Renata (Holly Hunter) turns for that solace when, as the third and last unmarried Bella, she is dumped by “the spineless worm” she’s expected to marry (the droll Griffin Dunne, the film’s co-producer). Unfortunately, this shock follows on the heels of her bridesmaid’s duties for her younger sister, Jan (Laura San Giacomo).

Crushed and adrift, Hunter tries a new job, selling Caribbean condo time-shares, when fate takes over. There, on a promontory in St. Martin’s, in an ice-cream white suit, is the company’s salesman extraordinaire , Sam Sharpe (Richard Dreyfuss), rich, cheerfully vulgar, self-made, self-promoting and, within days, selflessly in love with her.

No wonder he’s the company’s primo salesman; Dreyfuss’ assurance is as blinding as his pinkie ring. When Hunter weakly turns down his proposition for a weekend in New York on their return, he orders his limo driver to drive them to her home. There he greets a suspicious Aiello exuberantly: “Let me shake the hand of the first man my rosebud ever loved.”

He’s only warming up, but the siege of the Bellas has begun. In addition to its surprising unstickiness, the fun of “Once Around” is that Hallstrom and Marmo let us understand how Dreyfuss’ well-intentioned firestorm of attentions can seem overwhelming. Hunter, of course, is charmed silly; San Giacomo is wary; her impressionable husband Peter (Tim Guinee) is dazzled by the business opportunities Dreyfuss is soon tossing his way. The older, bearded Bella son (Danton Stone) and his wife (Roxanne Hart) refuse to be pushed around, and Aiello and Rowlands are leery and thunderstruck, by turns.

“Once Around” stands or falls by audiences’ reaction to Dreyfuss’ boor with a heart of gold. It’s a diabolically tricky role: We have to be able to see through the crassness to the loving man inside, and the filmmakers, to their credit, make that as tough as possible. This is a man who simply doesn’t know when to let bad enough alone.

It’s also what makes the film so involving. Along with Aiello, audiences may not be able to imagine living with Dreyfuss on a day-to-day basis, but they must feel that Hunter is not simply attracted to him for his flotation cushion of money--he’s her great adventure in life.

Dreyfuss draws Sam Sharpe’s mortifying facets with gusto and shades his unqualified love for this family, which persists in resisting him, with deep tenderness. Interestingly enough, when firm family lines are finally drawn, he becomes more reasonable than Hunter’s character, who seems childish and selfish.

Hallstrom has made Aiello’s performance the perfect foil to Dreyfuss’; Joe Bella is equally as mushy on the inside as Sam Sharpe but without an ounce of the flash that be-spangles Sam’s every gesture. And Rowlands, unquestioned anchor of the family, is unparalleled in the film’s most hilariously satisfying confrontation with Sam.

Although Marmo’s script has a great intra-family sense, shown by the sisters’ warm complicity or Aiello’s grumbling disgust at his son’s beard (“I don’t see how you can get past airport security”), it’s too sketchy about Dreyfuss’ financial empire. Without those details, we spend the film braced for his bubble to burst and that’s not the direction “Once Around” (rated R for frank language) is taking.

Hallstrom 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. No wonder “Once Around” feels so especially compelling right now.

‘Once Around’

Richard Dreyfuss: Sam Sharpe

Holly Hunter: Renata Bella

Danny Aiello: Joe Bella

Laura San Giacomo: Jan Bella Hedges

Gena Rowlands: Marilyn Bella

A Universal release of a Universal and Cinecom Entertainment Group presentation of a Double Play production. Producers Amy Robinson, Griffin Dunne. Executive producer G. Mac Brown. Co-producer Dreyfuss/James Productions. Director Lasse Hallstrom. Screenplay Malia Scotch Marmo. Camera Theo Van De Sande. Editor Andrew Mondshein. Music James Horner. Production design David Gropman. Art direction Dan Davis, Michael Foxworthy (Boston). Costumes Renee Kalfus. Sound Danny Michael. Running time 1 hour, 54 minutes.

MPAA-rated: R (for frank language).