Text Size:
A|
A|
A
Email
Print
Credit (or blame) George Hamilton's mother for his lifelong addiction to tanning.
In "My One and Only," Ann Devereaux tells the teenage George and his half-brother, Robbie, to go to the beach in their newly adopted home of Los Angeles.
"I don't like the beach," George says. "Oh, go get yourself some color, George, you're paler than a nun's behind," his mother suggests.
Color of a different sort is what "My One and Only," a fictionalized account of Hamilton's early life, is all about. Ann (Renee Zellweger) has a saying for every occasion, with "Everything works out for the best" a favorite, and "Just look where you're going and pretend that that's not even there," a reference to a car's rearview mirror and to life itself.
In 1953, after Ann discovers her husband, bandleader Dan Devereaux (Kevin Bacon), is cheating on her, she and the boys take off in a new blue Cadillac Coupe de Ville convertible.
- Starring: Renee Zellweger, Logan Lerman, Mark Rendall, Kevin Bacon.
- Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and language.
- Web site: www.myoneandonly.com/
Ann is not known for her mothering skills -- she goes to the wrong school to collect her sons, for instance -- but she has a string of one-time boyfriends and acquaintances across the country who come in handy. When George (Logan Lerman) asks Robbie (Mark Rendall), "You think Mom is crazy?" Robbie replies, "I can't tell, she's the only one I've had."
Ann's beauty, optimism and old-fashioned flirtatious nature carry the boys through thick and thin. Robbie is depicted as effeminate but steely when it counts while George, although mature for 15, pines for his father's affection and enters show business in a most serendipitous way.
The movie takes its title from the song of the same name, the bandleader's one and only hit. A Pittsburgh connection happens 25 minutes in, when the threesome rent an apartment on the South Side and Ann has several harrowing encounters with men and also meets a sweet admirer.
This 30-minute slice of the movie was shot in Baltimore, which is why the South Side looks nothing like Pittsburgh, despite references to the working-class neighbors and Ann running into an old beau in Kaufmann's.
"My One and Only," directed by Richard Loncraine and written by Charlie Peters ("Passed Away"), is entertaining, thanks to its core cast, an impressive collection of men who pass through the picture and view of 1950s' life through a golden haze.
Zellweger turns on the charm and milks her soft voice and, thanks to hair, fashion and makeup, slides easily into the decade, while Lerman builds on solid turns in such movies as "3:10 to Yuma." George has to become the man of the family at 15, driving the convertible out of New York and into the great unknown, and Lerman handles that with ease.
But Ann remains something of a mystery, defined by how her husband, sons or resentful Midwestern sister see her, and, lacking a confidante, we never really get inside her head. George has Robbie, but the boys' introspective years are ahead of them.
"My One and Only" literally covers lots of territory as the trio drives from coast to coast but it doesn't always cover the right territory. It left me wanting much more but with a new appreciation for Hamilton (his father's real last name), a man who weathered familial and emotional storms as if a day at the beach.
