Finnegan Begin Again is a TV-movie from the mid-80’s, starring Robert Preston, Mary Tyler Moore, and Sam Waterson, in a story about love and friendship in unexpected places.

Preston plays Mike Finnegan, who right away strikes us as a charming eccentric. When he goes on the bus to work every morning, he likes to strike up conversations and make flattering comments to many of the strangers that board the bus. The passengers generally regard Finnegan as a harmless old man, and either ignore him or have a gentle laugh at his expense.

Finnegan is a newspaper man on the cusp of retirement. In fact, he has officially been put out to pasture, no longer writing for the city section of the paper. Yet, because the boss likes him so much, he continues in a certain capacity -- as the writer of an advice column. The column is supposed to be written by a “Felicity Hope”, but in truth, Finnegan is the one writing the answers on “her” behalf. However, Finnegan’s attitude in the column is such that the boss may have no choice but to retire him permanently -- Finnegan’s responses to the lonely and conflicted hearts who write to Felicity are not filled with hope, but with bitter reality and moralizing.

We eventually discover that his attitude as “Felicity Hope” may be a result of his present life -- he is in a loveless marriage with an eccentric, possibly senile, older woman. He has stuck by her for more than three decades, even though it seems clear that the marriage only exists because he feels that it must; that it would be wrong to destroy something that was meant to last until death do us part.

Finnegan meets up with Moore’s character, Elizabeth, on the bus one day. He strikes up a conversation with her, and later on, meets up with her at a Laundromat. He talks to her about his general inquisitive nature, and demonstrates a technique that allows him to deduce a person’s situation just from observing some small but important details about that person. So he tries it out on her... and his deduction is just a little too close to the bone ........

....... because, you see, Elizabeth is, in fact, doing exactly what Finnegan deduced during his little game. She is having an affair with Paul (Sam Waterson), a married man, and meets with him in a cheap apartment building once a week. She travels on the bus to the location, because it would be too risky if she and the man were to travel to this location with their own cars. And her lover is, not surprisingly, not completely willing to stir up the pot -- he seems quite happy with this arrangement. After all, he doesn’t want to break up his family, and disappoint his children, and he has a funeral home business to attend to as well -- he says he loves Elizabeth, but isn’t prepared to take the extra step that would satisfy her.

Elizabeth is paranoid enough about Mike’s accurate guessing game that she thinks that perhaps he’s some sort of investigator, or worse. But, after that is sorted out, the two end up developing a friendship, the sort that comes from knowing about each other’s secrets and lives. Mike is concerned about Elizabeth’s situation -- some of the stuff that he says doesn’t sound completely tactful to Elizabeth’s ears, yet at the same time, she does listen to him. He relates to her that he had an affair of his own nearly thirty years previously, and the result of that was enough to set him straight, to understand that love isn’t all about passion, but about trying to work things out, to stay together during the good and the bad times -- this makes the viewer understand why he would still stay with his wife even though it is no longer a perfect arrangement.

Later on, Mike himself needs some help. He and his wife live in a bad part of town (at the beginning of the film, Mike is mugged at his own front door), and one afternoon after coming home, he sees that the house has been invaded, and his wife on the floor, apparently having suffered a stroke after the surprise robbery. The prognosis doesn’t look good for his wife, and it could only be a matter of days before she dies. This forces Mike to come to terms with what should have been done long ago -- like his marriage, the house they live in is a mess (even before the robbery), with junk every which way, and his own friends even tell him that he shouldn’t be living in such a state any longer. Elizabeth helps him to get his life in order, to rummage through the junk and auction off or throw out some of it. During this time, Mike is offered to stay at Elizabeth’s for a while, and this is when their friendship grows deeper.

The major dynamic in this movie is between Moore’s and Preston’s characters -- neither of their own relationships are particularly good for them, so they end up being drawn together. Normally, it would seem apparent that these two will fall in love, but, this time, I, at least, never quite sensed that this was a sure thing. This isn’t one of those movies where sappy romantic love is passed around freely -- as in real life, among adults, the relationship is more about friendship, and not about the kind of love you see in sappy teen flicks. Of course, I suppose the age gap might have been what made me believe that there wasn’t going to be a romantic relationship between these two -- Preston’s character is 65 in this film, and Moore’s character is surely a couple of decades younger --- but, then again, there have been many May-December relationships in movies. I suppose the reason that I never quite expected any sort of romance to occur between the two characters was because the script tries to be a bit more mature about the whole thing. These two don’t get together because of love, but because of luck, at first, and of sympathy and friendship later on.

Even so, I suppose love could exist between them... certainly, each one has something that the other lacks, and if they were to realize that, they could get together and form a whole from that. Elizabeth knows about passion, romance, and the like, but her relationship with Paul is so secretive and dubious that she doesn’t really have the chance to form a deep relationship that involves more than just passion. At the same time, Mike is, for the most part, loyal -- at the very least, he is decent enough to keep his marriage together, even if, by now, he’s in an unhappy rut. He has the ability to see beyond the initial passion, at any rate.

While the movie is more closer to a romantic comedy than a romantic drama, Finnegan Begin Again is definitely not a hilarious movie, overall. A couple of scenes would not feel out of place in a slapstick comedy, however, such as a scene involving Mike, Elizabeth, Paul and an open grave, but the movie itself is quite low-key and subdued, so much so that when a scene like this does come along it’s almost unexpected. At the same time, the movie doesn’t take itself too seriously at all times -- the characters are allowed to be human, and occasionally quirky. Some of the more touching scenes involve Mike and his bedridden wife. Even as the prognosis by the doctor seems nothing short of dire, Mike’s wife does show some signs of recovery, and you can see how Mike suddenly feels more alive, more caring, as all of his dormant feelings are suddenly awakened, and he is able to care again.

This was a nice, quaint little movie, such as most TV movies of the time seem to have been. While the script isn’t perfect, and the movie itself not earth-shattering, the main performers are good to watch, and the movie is a perfectly acceptable story about love and friendship.

Recommended:
Yes

Viewing Format: VHS
Video Occasion: Good for a Rainy Day