One Fine Day (1996 film)

Melanie Parker is an architect whose day gets off to a bad start when she is late to drop off her son Sammy at school, due to the forgetfulness of fellow divorced father Jack Taylor, a New York Daily News reporter whose daughter, Maggie, is thrust into his care that morning by his former wife who leaves to go on her honeymoon with her new husband. The children arrive just a moment too late to go on a school field trip, a Circle Line boat cruise. Their parents realize that, on top of hectically busy schedules, they must work together that day to supervise the children. In the confusion of sharing a taxi, they accidentally switch cell phones, causing each of them, all morning, to receive calls intended for the other one, which they then have to relay to the other person.

Melanie must make an architectural design presentation to an important client. Jack has to find a source for a scoop on the New York mayor's mob connections. Sammy causes havoc at Melanie's office with his toy cars, causing her to trip and break her scale model display. In frustration, she takes him to a day care center (which is having a "Superhero Day"), where she coincidentally comes across Jack trying to convince Maggie to stay and behave herself. They create impromptu costumes for the children, using his imagination and her resourcefulness. She takes her model to a shop to get it quickly repaired. Having left for a meeting, she panics when she receives a phone call from Sammy about another child having a psychedelic drug. She phones Jack in desperation and asks him to pick up the children. He agrees, on the condition that she take over their care at 3:15 while he chases down a potential news source.

While in Melanie's care, Maggie goes missing from a store and wanders some distance down a crowded midtown sidewalk. Melanie breaks down in despair at the police station, files a missing child report, and then goes to a mayoral press conference to find Jack. He is notified by the police that Maggie has been found, and makes it to the press conference just barely in time to confront the mayor with his scoop about corruption. He had earlier tracked down its source, just as she was leaving a beauty salon in a limousine. Although they have been antagonistic, Melanie and Jack work together to take the children, by taxi, to a soccer game. She insists that she will have time first to do her presentation to the new clients, despite him protesting that it will make them late for the game. She begins her pitch over drinks at the 21 Club lounge, but upon seeing Sammy in high spirits, she realizes that she cares more about him than her job. Insisting that she must leave immediately to be with him, she fully expects to be fired, but the clients are impressed.

At the game, Melanie meets with her former husband, Eddie, a musician; he informs her that he will not be able to take Sammy fishing in the summer as he will be touring as a drummer with Bruce Springsteen instead. That evening, Jack wants a reason to visit Melanie's apartment, so he takes Maggie to buy goldfish to replace the ones that were eaten earlier in the day by a cat. At Melanie's apartment, the children watch The Wizard of Oz while she and Jack share a first kiss. She goes to the bathroom to freshen up; when she returns, an exhausted Jack is asleep on the sofa. She joins him and they fall asleep together, with the children happily observing.

Clooney's character did not exist in the script's original draft. Producer Lynda Obst explained the change: "We were being incredibly sexist. There are plenty of divorced, single working fathers going through the exact same thing." The studios initially wanted Kevin Costner or Tom Cruise to portray Jack Taylor, but they passed and Clooney ultimately received the part. The film was shot in 44 Manhattan locations.^[3]

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One Fine Day: Music from the Motion Picture is the soundtrack album to the film. It was released on December 10, 1996, by Columbia Records. The album peaked at number 57 on Billboard 200 in 1997.