Twice in a Lifetime

Name: Twice in a Lifetime
Director: Bud Yorkin
Released: 1985

Bud Yorkin

1985

Synopsis

A middle-aged steelworker is content with his job and his family, but feels that something is missing in his life. On his 50th birthday, he stops in at a local bar for a drink to celebrate. He finds himself attracted to the young, very sexy barmaid--and, to his surprise, he finds that she is also very attracted to him.

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Recommendations

91
The A.V. Club
An unusually perceptive look at subjects seldom explored in American film—the emotional lives of working-class extended families and middle-aged sexuality—Twice In A Lifetime is especially poignant when documenting the collateral damage the central affair causes to Hackman's wife (a touching Ellen Burstyn) and bitter adult daughter (Amy Madigan).
88
Chicago Sun-Times
The movie does not have a conventional happy ending. Life will go on, and people will strive, and new routines will replace old ones. The movie has no villains and few heroes. But it has given us several remarkable scenes, especially two confrontations between Madigan and Hackman, one in a bar, the other at a wedding rehearsal, in which the movie shows how much children expect from their parents, and how little the parents often have to give.
75
Chicago Tribune
Io its credit, the film has a surprising and likely to be controversial ending. It creates moments of genuine tension that take us beyond the issue of who is more at fault and into the deeper question of what does a lifetime of commitment really require?
75
TV Guide Magazine
It's a film that deals with natural emotions and commonplace decisions creating uncommon situations. Bud Yorkin's direction is also top-notch.
75
Entertainment Weekly
”With her it’s sex?” a weepy Ellen Burstyn asks husband Gene Hackman in Twice in a Lifetime, a sensitive divorce drama that finds her wondering why Hackman’s steel-mill man is jilting her late in life for jezebel barmaid Ann-Margret. ”Of course it’s sex,” Hackman replies testily. ”It’s important.” Good scene, but it’s jarring, too, because it reminds you just how rarely this master actor has been asked to play a man in heat over the course of his long career.
70
Variety
The pic is loaded with jock humor and incidental comments that allow the characters’ frustrations to seep out. Audiences will love Burstyn’s warm wrinkles and visit with her daughters to a male strip joint, as well as Hackman’s workmanlike heroism.
60
The New York Times
An enjoyable, second-rate family drama rich in the kind of folk wisdom that can ordinarily be found on daytime television.
60
Time Out
While there is an admirable depiction of 'real' people at work or settling down for the big match with a six-pack, the material is still no more than the great middle class drama of adultery, worked out with its very familiar rows and guilts. The acting, however, is a fascinating primer in just who can handle the medium. Burstyn and Madigan come out as if born to the art.