Mrs. Winterbourne

Directed by Richard Benjamin, Mrs. Winterbourne follows Ricki Lake’s pregnant Connie Doyle as she’s mistaken for a dead woman after a train crash and, through a series of wacky misunderstandings, finds herself assuming said dead woman’s life – which eventually paves the way for a romance between Connie and the deceased’s character’s identical twin brother (Brendan Fraser’s Bill). It’s a fairly ludicrous premise that’s employed to watchable and unexpectedly engaging effect by Benjamin, as the filmmaker, working from Phoef Sutton and Lisa-Maria Radano’s script, delivers a briskly-paced romcom that benefits substantially from the affable, charismatic work of its various actors – with Fraser’s typically magnetic performance remaining a (predictable) highlight from start to finish. (Lake is good here, too, although it’s clear that she’s simply unable to achieve the electrifying heights of her talented costar.) And while the picture generally unfolds as one might’ve anticipated, Mrs. Winterbourne builds to a third act that, somewhat amazingly, contains few (if any) of the hackneyed (and unreasonably melodramatic) plot points associated with the romantic-comedy genre. (There is, for example, no fake break-up!) The final result is a comfortably familiar endeavor that does, for the most part, fare a whole lot better than expected, which is no small feat, ultimately, given the proliferation of cookie-cutter elements within Sutton and Radano’s screenplay.

*** out of ****