{"id":7684,"date":"2024-10-30T23:11:31","date_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:11:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=7684"},"modified":"2024-10-30T23:11:31","modified_gmt":"2024-10-31T03:11:31","slug":"six-weeks","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/10\/30\/six-weeks\/","title":{"rendered":"Six Weeks"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Six Weeks<\/strong> (1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PolyGram\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (thematic elements, sexual references, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Tony Bill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Seltzer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Dudley Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael D. Margulies\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 17, 1982 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dudley Moore, Mary Tyler Moore, Katherine Healy, Shannon Wilcox, Bill Calvert, Joe Regalbuto, John Harkins, Michael Ensign, Anne Ditchburn.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: $6.6M (US)<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0Have you ever liked a movie because it goes so unbelievably wrong in every way? I\u2019m not talking about big-budget disasters like 1941 and Hudson Hawk (both of which I like). I\u2019m 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I can\u2019t say for sure what intentions were behind Six Weeks<\/strong>: I\u2019m 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\u2019s one of those dramas that will have viewers rolling their eyes instead of wiping away tears. So why do I like it so much?<\/p>\n

\u00a0Director Tony Bill (My Bodyguard) doubles up on the Moores in Six Weeks<\/strong> 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\u2019s 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\u2019t exact a good first meeting. She doesn\u2019t like politicians and is convinced he only befriended her daughter to cajole a huge donation out of her. He\u2019s never heard of her until just now.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Their second meeting doesn\u2019t 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\u2019s playmate and turns Charlotte down. That\u2019s when he learns something is wrong with Niki. Soon thereafter, he learns about the girl\u2019s illness and her grim prognosis. Niki further reveals it\u2019s her third relapse and she\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Touched, 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\u2019t already have a family of his own. This is where Six Weeks<\/strong> 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\u2019s 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 \u201ceternal love\u201d and agree to be married \u201cfor now because there is no always\u201d and to remember their vow until they can \u201cno longer remember\u201d. Does this make Patrick a mock bigamist?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I got a little ahead of myself with that last bit, so let\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0At 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\u2019s so impressed with Niki\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

There\u2019s a lot wrong with and about Six Weeks<\/strong>. Two of them are pretty major. First, Patrick is a public figure. He\u2019s 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\u2019re 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\u2019s inconceivable to me the situation doesn\u2019t create a scandal that threatens to jeopardize his chances of being elected to Congress.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Second, I hate to sound unsympathetic, but Niki is a spoiled, self-centered brat with a mother who indulges her every wish. She doesn\u2019t know the meaning of the word \u201cno\u201d. She asks personal, inappropriate questions. Are we really supposed to feel sorry for this child? At least we\u2019re spared a drawn-out deathbed scene with profound final words.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I could point out other flaws in Six Weeks<\/strong>. For example, where is Niki\u2019s father? WHO is Niki\u2019s father? He\u2019s never mentioned or referred to, not even once. Unless we\u2019re 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 \u201cwives\u201d 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\u2019t even share a passionate kiss. Their relationship is founded on their mutual love of Niki. In which case, shouldn\u2019t Patrick\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although they share a last name (no relation), there\u2019s little chemistry between Dudley and MTM. However, both leads give decent individual performances. They\u2019re 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\u2019s performance. A professional ballerina and figure skater, she does very well in her one and only movie appearance. Now here\u2019s where contradiction really comes into play. I LIKE NIKI. Sure, she\u2019s a little- okay, a lot- on the obnoxious side and has too much to say about things that don\u2019t concern her and always manages to get her way, but there\u2019s something charming about her too. I\u2019m of two minds about Niki. It\u2019s weird, right?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I consider Six Weeks<\/strong> a guilty pleasure. It\u2019s 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\u2019s 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\u2019s 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<\/strong>. I guess I\u2019ll never learn my lesson. In its defense, it\u2019s not half as cloying as Table for Five which came out around the same time. I don\u2019t hate Six Weeks<\/strong> at all; I like it actually. I just see it for what it is. It\u2019s melodramatic trash that might allow some viewers a good cry.\"\"<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Six Weeks (1982)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 PolyGram\/Drama\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 107 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Rated PG (thematic elements, sexual references, language)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Tony Bill\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: David Seltzer\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Dudley Moore\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: Michael D. Margulies\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: December 17, 1982 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Dudley Moore, Mary Tyler Moore, Katherine Healy, Shannon Wilcox, Bill Calvert, Joe Regalbuto, John Harkins, Michael Ensign, Anne Ditchburn.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office: […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":7862,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[19,9,12],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7684","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-dramas","category-guilty-pleasures","category-holiday-movies"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/10\/Six-Weeks-PIC.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7684","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7684"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7684\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7864,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7684\/revisions\/7864"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/7862"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7684"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7684"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7684"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}