From the earliest moments of One Special Night, you know that Catherine (Julie Andrews) is driving a uniquely impractical car in a snowstorm for a reason. Less expected, perhaps, is the explanation—it’s to help facilitate a meet-cute in a hospice.
That’s where she goes to pass quiet moments in the room where her late husband stayed. That the room is seemingly available on-demand is one of many contrivances here, in this 1999 holiday telefilm that aired on CBS. It’s also where she meets Robert (James Garner), a devoted husband visiting his dementia-afflicted wife, who has suffered a series of heart attacks.
When Robert’s left carless in the storm, Catherine offers him a ride home. A pediatric cardiologist with a brusque, serious demeanor, she is quickly at odds with the gruff, wisecracking contractor. “Do I seem grossly incompetent to you?” she asks when he offers to drive. After knowing him a bit longer, she muses “I’m wondering how many times you have offended me today.”
Inevitably, they end up stranded, seeking refuge in a homey cabin in the woods and bickering along the way. That’s where Andrews and Garner, in their third pairing after The Americanization of Emily (1964) and Victor/Victoria (1982), really hit their stride, trading barbs over dinner.
CATHERINE: You set the table. You’re very domesticated for a male chauvinist.
ROBERT: And you are looking very beautiful for a woman who’s given up on being one.
“Your problem, Mr. Marchand, is that you’re preoccupied with stereotypes.”
Despite the depressing particulars of how its characters meet, this is a feel-good film that relies heavily on Garner’s affability. His character isn’t always equally endearing—Robert can be a bit of an ass. The screenplay, credited to Nancey Silvers (and adapted from a Jan Hartman play), traffics in the antiquated notion that it’s charming for a man in his seventies to antagonize an accomplished sexagenarian like a card-carrying member of the He-Man Woman-Haters Club. Here’s a bit more of their mealtime “banter”:
ROBERT: Women have different looks. They’re subtle, but men can read them very clearly. There’s available. Unavailable. Unavailable, except for the right guy.
CATHERINE: And what am I, in your educated opinion?
ROBERT: You’re the easiest to read of all. Ice, high walls, guns drawn, unavailable, uninterested, don’t look, don’t try. [Cranky note: Ah! My personal favorite.]
CATHERINE: That is so absolutely not true. I think I’m a very warm person.
ROBERT: Well, if you put on a dress, wear your hair just a little softer, men will notice you hiding in there.
CATHERINE: I’m not interested in being noticed.
ROBERT: I didn’t mean to embarrass you.
CATHERINE: You didn’t. [Cranky note: That’s right, Robert. You embarrass yourself.]
Robert’s casual lectures on cultivating femininity pose interesting, unanswered questions about his relationships with his wife and independent-minded adult daughters. (Their pregnant eldest, played by Patricia Charbonneau of Desert Hearts, is separated from her husband, a philandering divorce lawyer.) His response to Catherine’s dominance in a fireside game of Scrabble—“Damn, you are competitive for a woman!”—further suggests that, even at his advanced age, he’s curiously unfamiliar with women and physicians alike.
“You know, I never realized what a sensual satisfaction grieving is for women.”
It’s unambitious material that Garner and Andrews easily transcend, their chemistry and warmth crackling as comfortably as the cabin’s fireplace, stirring nostalgia for the more sophisticated gender and sexual politics of their previous collaborations.
Our familiarity with these two, and belief in their fundamental decency, helps smooth over the story’s big wrinkle: We’re rooting for this coupling while Robert’s wife is still alive. Silvers and veteran TV director Roger Young aren’t overly interested in wringing drama from that. Robert’s fidelity is never in doubt to the characters, or to us. His daughters aren’t meddlers; they know he’s had ample time to mourn their mother in the final years of her decline.
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Streaming and DVD availability
If you have an Amazon Prime subscription, you can currently stream One Special Night at no additional cost. It’s also available on DVD.
… But wait, there’s more!
According to a New York Times interview with Andrews and Garner, Blake Edwards, their Victor/Victoria director (and Andrews’s husband), was originally slated to direct One Special Night. Scheduling conflicts intervened and he was replaced by Young, a prolific director of TV movies in the 1980s.
Young’s better-known work includes the Bourne Identity miniseries (starring Richard Chamberlain and Jaclyn Smith, years removed from her Epris spokeswoman gig) and Love Among Thieves, featuring Audrey Hepburn and Robert Wagner. However, it was a writer’s credit that caught my eye: Virus, his 1995 TV movie adaptation of a Robin Cook novel. Starring Nicollette Sheridan as a CDC researcher and William Devane as her physician-scientist mentor, this one (released the same year as Wolfgang Petersen’s Outbreak) sounds too terrible to miss.
Cranky Lesbian is a disgruntled homosexual with too much time on her hands. Click for film reviews or to follow on Instagram.
Mike G.
Great review. This hokey Christmas film captured my heart. It’s as sappy as you would expect, but somehow endearing.