Film
Movie theaters, reviews and showtimes in Chicago, plus articles, trailers and more
- Home
- Box Office
- Listings
- Trailers
- Features
Bookmark this page- Edition:
A Simple Wish (1997)
Director: Michael Ritchie
Movie review
From Time Out Film Guide
Little Anabel (Wilson) loves New York, but her careworn dad (a widower) threatens to drag her off to Nebraska if he doesn't get the lead in a Broadway musical. Enter Murray (Short), the first male fairy godmother, and hopeless to boot. Anabel's confused about her wishes, and with the appearance of megalomaniac Claudia (Turner) - a good godmother turned bad - it seems like curtains. Murray looks interesting (think Emo Phillips impaled on Maurice Gibb's teeth), but is he a super-modern wit or the traditional lovable clown? It might've been nice if he'd become emotionally connected to Anabel or, indeed, to any of the other characters. His antics, however, are uninvolving, and Claudia, though a similarly lazy construct, steals the show. Like Frankenstein, director Ritchie has begged and borrowed from too many sources.Author: CO'Su
Cast & crew
Director: Michael Ritchie
Producer: Sidney Sheinberg, Bill Sheinberg, Jon Sheinberg
Cast: Martin Short, Kathleen Turner, Mara Wilson, Robert Pastorelli, Amanda Plummer, Francis Capra, Ruby Dee, Teri Garr full cast
Duration: 89 mins
Most popular on this site
Features
Gray's anatomy
James Gray wants to push buttons—again.
The next big thing?
Gigantic Releasing tries to rethink indie distribution…without movie theaters.
Red Diva: Lyubov Orlova, First Lady of Soviet Cinema
So you think you can dance, comrade?
Puppet master
Coraline director Henry Selick takes stop-motion animation into 3-D.
Socratic method
Laurent Cantet's approach on the set matches the message of his film.
Wander woman
Kelly Reichardt's Wendy and Lucy puts a Bush-era spin on the road movie.
Oscars
Read our interviews with the nominees, our reviews of the nominated films and more.
What do you think?
Post your review now