‘Fine Day’ a Dawning for Clooney

Nothing says more about the many ways the American family is disappearing than the zeal with which Hollywood has zeroed in on the results. “First Wives Club” and its revenge of the original spouse scenario touched a nerve, and now comes “One Fine Day,” a slick romantic fantasy for single parents who fear they’ll always have to go it alone.

Like “First Wives,” “One Fine Day” is fortunate in its casting. Not only does it have Michelle Pfeiffer, whose gift for this kind of business was visible as far back as “Married to the Mob” and “The Fabulous Baker Boys,” but it marks the emergence of George Clooney as a major romantic star.

The confident Clooney, “ER’s” hospital ward heartthrob, didn’t play to his strength when he debuted in the ultra-violent “From Dawn to Dusk,” but it’s different here. With his thick eyebrows and perpetual 5 o’clock shadow, Clooney possesses considerable roguish charm and handles himself with practiced aplomb.

Not only do Pfeiffer and Clooney play well together, their negative chemistry is also strong, which makes the plot’s insistence that they are enemies from the moment they meet a conceit that does not have to be taken on faith.

Given this, it would be nice to say that “One Fine Day” lives happily ever after, but it’s difficult to take as much pleasure in the finished product as the casting anticipates. Directed by Michael Hoffman, this film does not care to be original, falling back on cookie-cutter plot elements that give the finished product an unbecoming mechanical sheen.

With a pair of versions of the Gerry Goffin-Carole King rock standard (by Natalie Merchant and the Chiffons) serving as bookends, “One Fine Day” takes two single parents fearful of the opposite sex through a 12-hour time span so hellacious a pair of screen-writers (Terrel Seltzer and Ellen Simon) were needed to fill in the details.

Melanie Parker (Pfeiffer), a lower-echelon architect at a distinguished New York firm, has a 5-year-old son named Sammy. His schoolmate Maggie is the daughter of Jack Taylor (Clooney), the kind of “God, I love this town” newspaper columnist that movies are so fond of.

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On the day in question, both kids are supposed to take a Circle Line cruise around Manhattan, but a series of misadventures has them miss the boat and throws the parents unhappily together. Melanie can’t stand Jack’s infantile, “I’m just a big kid” personality, while he’s had enough of superwomen who get snooty if you try to open the door for them.

Making things worse, both Melanie and Jack have big career days in front of them. She has to make a major presentation to a client; he has to hold together the usual “I love this town” story about the mayor, garbage and the mob. Out of necessity, not love, they agree to pool their limited time and engage in tag-team baby-sitting. If you’re thinking everything goes smoothly, you do not have a future in Hollywood.

As the children in question, Alex D. Linz and Mae Whitman are acceptable, but “One Fine Day” spends too much of its time on tiresome kid misbehavior of the most obvious “Gosh, Mom, I spilled juice on your blouse” variety. This stuff does not stay funny for long, and it points up how dependent on the most obvious situations and most arbitrary and frantic coincidences so much of the plot is. Given the divergent credits of the two writers (Selzer did the offbeat “Chan Is Missing” and “Dim Sum,” while Simon the treacly “Moonlight and Valentino”), that’s not a surprise.

Still, despite feeling like its moments have been micro-managed for maximum audience response, “One Fine Day” often passes for a pleasant diversion. But with actors so suited to each other, it’s too bad the film didn’t give them more original material to work with.

* MPAA rating: PG, for language and mild sensuality. Times guidelines: nothing more traumatic than a marble lodged in a child’s nose.

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‘One Fine Day’

Michelle Pfeiffer: Melanie Parker

George Clooney: Jack Taylor

Mae Whitman: Maggie Taylor

Alex D. Linz: Sammy Parker

Charles Durning: Lew

Fox 2000 Pictures presents a Lynda Obst production, in association with Via Rosa productions, released by 20th Century Fox. Director Michael Hoffman. Producer Lynda Obst. Executive producers Kate Guinzburg, Michelle Pfeiffer. Screenplay Terrel Seltzer and Ellen Simon. Cinematographer Oliver Stapleton. Editor Garth Craven. Costumes Susie DeSanto. Music James Newton Howard. Production design David Gropman. Art director John Warnke. Set decorator Anne Kuljian. Running time: 1 hour, 49 minutes.

* In general release throughout Southern California.