Six Weeks (1982) PolyGram/Drama RT: 107 minutes Rated PG (thematic elements, sexual references, language) Director: Tony Bill Screenplay: David Seltzer Music: Dudley Moore Cinematography: Michael D. Margulies Release date: December 17, 1982 (US) Cast: Dudley Moore, Mary Tyler Moore, Katherine Healy, Shannon Wilcox, Bill Calvert, Joe Regalbuto, John Harkins, Michael Ensign, Anne Ditchburn. Box Office: $6.6M (US)
Rating: ***
Have you ever liked a movie because it goes so unbelievably wrong in every way? I’m not talking about big-budget disasters like 1941 and Hudson Hawk (both of which I like). I’m talking about smaller-scale movies that fail despite being made with the best of intentions. Well, you know what they say about good intentions and the road to hell.
I can’t say for sure what intentions were behind Six Weeks: I’m not even sure if it takes place in the real world or some alternate universe that revolves around a precocious 12YO girl dying of leukemia. Misguided and misconceived in almost every way, it’s one of those dramas that will have viewers rolling their eyes instead of wiping away tears. So why do I like it so much?
Director Tony Bill (My Bodyguard) doubles up on the Moores in Six Weeks in his casting of Dudley Moore (Arthur) and Mary Tyler Moore (Ordinary People) as the couple brought together by a sick girl with six weeks left to live. Dudley plays Patrick Dalton, a British-born/naturalized American politician running for Congress in California. He meets 12YO Niki Dreyfus (Healy) when he gets lost on the way to a fundraiser at some rich guy’s house. She charms him so much while showing him the way; he invites her to drop by the party to hear his speech. She shows up with her mother, wealthy cosmetics queen Charlotte (Mary Tyler), in tow. It isn’t exact a good first meeting. She doesn’t like politicians and is convinced he only befriended her daughter to cajole a huge donation out of her. He’s never heard of her until just now.
Their second meeting doesn’t go much better. Charlotte summons Patrick to her place of business with a business proposal. She offers to make a substantial contribution to his campaign if he agrees to allow Niki to help him get elected. Naturally, he resents the idea of being paid to be the girl’s playmate and turns Charlotte down. That’s when he learns something is wrong with Niki. Soon thereafter, he learns about the girl’s illness and her grim prognosis. Niki further reveals it’s her third relapse and she’s decided not to go through treatment again due to the side effects. She wants whatever time she has left to be as pleasurable as possible.
Touched, Patrick starts spending time with Niki and Charlotte, playing the role of surrogate father and husband. The adults start to develop feelings for each other. All of this would be fine if Patrick didn’t already have a family of his own. This is where Six Weeks traverses into tricky territory. What are we, the viewing audience, supposed to do with the idea of a man adopting a second family? If you think about it, it’s a form of bigamy. Oh wait, it gets better. In a particularly cringe-inducing scene, Niki holds a mock wedding ceremony where she asks Patrick and Charlotte to pledge their “eternal love” and agree to be married “for now because there is no always” and to remember their vow until they can “no longer remember”. Does this make Patrick a mock bigamist?
I got a little ahead of myself with that last bit, so let’s backtrack a bit. Patrick leaves his first family temporarily to be with his second family. After a brief period of separation brought on by his two families meeting at a party thrown by Charlotte, Patrick joins Charlotte and Niki for a Christmas vacation in New York. They do all the usual things; sightsee, laugh, goof around, ice skate at Rockefeller Center, carry a Christmas tree down a busy sidewalk and see The Nutcracker at Lincoln Center.
At this point, I should mention Niki is into ballet BIG TIME. One of the items on her bucket list is dancing in The Nutcracker. Can you see where this is going? I thought so. Patrick gets her an audition with the director who’s so impressed with Niki’s talent; he arranges it so she can share the lead role with another girl on opening night. This is where the last atom of believability flies right out the window. No director in the world would okay something like this, especially at the last minute and especially on opening night.
There’s a lot wrong with and about Six Weeks. Two of them are pretty major. First, Patrick is a public figure. He’s doing pretty well in the polls. A lot of attention is trained on him. How is it that not a single member of the press gets wind of his relationship with Charlotte and Niki? I know we’re talking about a time before the Internet, social media and 24-hour news channels. There were still reporters with cameras however. Realistically, at least one reporter would take a picture and break the illicit news to the world. It’s inconceivable to me the situation doesn’t create a scandal that threatens to jeopardize his chances of being elected to Congress.
Second, I hate to sound unsympathetic, but Niki is a spoiled, self-centered brat with a mother who indulges her every wish. She doesn’t know the meaning of the word “no”. She asks personal, inappropriate questions. Are we really supposed to feel sorry for this child? At least we’re spared a drawn-out deathbed scene with profound final words.
I could point out other flaws in Six Weeks. For example, where is Niki’s father? WHO is Niki’s father? He’s never mentioned or referred to, not even once. Unless we’re talking immaculate conception here, there has to be a father. Did he leave them? Die? Disappear from the face of the earth? Where is he? Next, are we really supposed to believe a meeting between the two “wives” would go down without a lot of yelling? How does the real Mrs. Dalton manage to be civil with the other Mrs. Dalton? Full disclosure, Patrick and Charlotte NEVER sleep together. They don’t even share a passionate kiss. Their relationship is founded on their mutual love of Niki. In which case, shouldn’t Patrick’s teenage son be jealous? No sign of it at all. This is a movie that glosses over or ignores major issues in favor of giving audiences something to cry about.
Although they share a last name (no relation), there’s little chemistry between Dudley and MTM. However, both leads give decent individual performances. They’re both good actors. I wish the material served them better. I know I said a lot of negative things about Niki, but I did like Healy’s performance. A professional ballerina and figure skater, she does very well in her one and only movie appearance. Now here’s where contradiction really comes into play. I LIKE NIKI. Sure, she’s a little- okay, a lot- on the obnoxious side and has too much to say about things that don’t concern her and always manages to get her way, but there’s something charming about her too. I’m of two minds about Niki. It’s weird, right?
I consider Six Weeks a guilty pleasure. It’s pure schmaltz. The blend of politics, adultery (sort of), ballet, Christmas and leukemia is about as appetizing as peanut butter and pickles on pizza. It’s completely emotionally manipulative. I bought into all of it. The score by Dudley Moore sounds just right for a sappy movie like this. I was moved by Niki’s death scene on a New York subway and felt weird about it afterwards. I should know better than to let myself be manipulated by dopey tripe like Six Weeks. I guess I’ll never learn my lesson. In its defense, it’s not half as cloying as Table for Five which came out around the same time. I don’t hate Six Weeks at all; I like it actually. I just see it for what it is. It’s melodramatic trash that might allow some viewers a good cry.
