Michael (1996)

An Angel Who Smells Like Cookies

Michael is a Christmas-season comedy about an angel, and it avoids nearly every sugary trap the premise sets. Its archangel is a big, scruffy, unshaven man in a vest who smokes, drinks, eats spoonfuls of sugar, dances with every woman in the room and starts fights in fields with bulls. He also smells of cookies, and nobody who meets him can explain why they feel so happy.

Nora Ephron directed it, between Sleepless in Seattle and You’ve Got Mail, and it was released at Christmas 1996. It was a solid commercial hit, and critics were lukewarm. I give it a 7. It’s slight and episodic, and its charm depends almost entirely on Travolta, and he delivers. It’s the kind of gentle, warm comedy that’s easy to underrate, and it has held up better than several bigger, louder films from the same year.

The Tabloid Assignment

The story begins in Chicago, at a tabloid newspaper called the National Mirror, where a burned-out reporter named Frank Quinlan, played by William Hurt, is given a strange assignment. A letter has arrived from a woman in Iowa claiming that an angel is living in her motel. Frank’s editor, Vartan Malt, played by Bob Hoskins, sends him to investigate with a colleague, Huey Driscoll, played by Robert Pastorelli, and the paper’s dog, Sparky.

Joining them is Dorothy Winters, played by Andie MacDowell, supposedly an expert on angels. In reality, she’s a dog trainer recently hired by the paper, and she’s been sent along partly to keep an eye on Frank. The three reporters are cynical, tired and uninterested in miracles, and they expect to find a fraud.

What they find at the motel, run by an elderly woman named Pansy, played by Jean Stapleton, is Michael. He’s real, he has wings, and he’s nothing like any angel they’ve ever imagined. Pansy adores him, treats him like a son and is entirely unsurprised that a winged man is living in her spare room. Her calm acceptance sets the film’s tone: the miraculous is simply part of the scenery.

Travolta’s Michael

Travolta’s performance is the reason the film works. His Michael is lazy, vain, earthy and enormously likeable, a man who treats being on earth as an extended holiday. He eats sugar cereal with extra sugar on top, lounges in his underwear, flirts shamelessly and speaks with a slow, amused confidence, as if he’s the only one in on the joke.

He’s also, beneath the slob, a genuine angel. People around him feel better without knowing why, women are drawn to him, and small miracles happen in his wake. Travolta plays both sides with ease, never overselling the holiness or the silliness, and the result is a character who feels like a warm, slightly disreputable uncle who happens to be a messenger from God.

It came two years after Pulp Fiction revived his career, and it proves how comfortable he was in lighter roles. Many viewers remember Michael as among his most purely enjoyable performances. He’s clearly having a wonderful time, and the pleasure is contagious. He never winks at the audience or plays the role as a joke. That sincerity keeps Michael from becoming a cartoon.

The Road Trip

Michael agrees to go to Chicago with the reporters, and the middle of the film becomes a road trip across the Midwest. He insists on stopping at roadside attractions along the way, including what’s claimed to be the world’s largest ball of twine and the world’s largest frying pan, and each stop becomes a small adventure.

The road trip gives the film its episodic structure. There’s no real villain and not much plot, only a series of encounters in diners, bars, fields and small towns, during which the three cynical reporters slowly soften. Frank and Dorothy, both wounded by past relationships, begin to fall for each other, and Huey, the most sceptical of the three, becomes Michael’s loyal friend.

It’s a gentle, meandering structure, and some viewers find it too slack. It suits the film’s mood, a holiday from the pressures of ordinary life, taken in the company of someone who loves being alive. Michael treats every roadside curiosity as a wonder, and by the end of the trip, the reporters have started to see them that way too.

The Bar

The film’s most famous scene takes place in a small-town bar, where Michael starts dancing to Aretha Franklin’s Chain of Fools and every woman in the place joins him. It’s a loose, joyful, slightly ridiculous sequence, and it reminds the audience that Travolta was once the star of Saturday Night Fever. He barely tries, and the whole room follows him.

The scene also shows what the film is about. Michael draws people together and makes them happy, not through sermons or miracles, but by enjoying himself so completely that everyone around him wants to join in. The bar fight that follows Michael cheerfully starts is played for laughs, and it confirms that this is an angel who enjoys the earthly side of life far more than he should. He fights the way he dances, with total commitment and a huge grin.

Sparky

The emotional turn comes when Sparky, the dog, is hit by a truck and killed. Huey, who loves the dog, is devastated. Michael brings Sparky back to life, and it’s among the few times the film shows his power openly. The scene is played simply, without special effects fanfare, and it’s the most affecting moment in the film.

The miracle costs him something. Michael has only a limited time on earth, and each act of power drains him. The film handles this quietly, and it gives the final act an unexpected sadness as the reporters realize that the angel who has changed their lives is fading.

The choice is clever. A film about an angel who could solve every problem would have no tension, so the story limits him. He’s running out of time, his power has a price, and the people who love him have to let him go. The sadness that results is what keeps the film from being pure fluff.

William Hurt and Andie MacDowell

Hurt plays Frank as a jaded, sarcastic, lonely man who has stopped believing in anything, including himself, and his gradual thaw is the film’s central arc. He’s good at the dry comedy and better at the quiet moments, when Frank begins to realize what Michael is showing him.

MacDowell’s Dorothy is warm and wry, a woman who has been hurt by men and has built a defensive, cheerful exterior. Her romance with Frank is gentle, adult and believable, two tired people who have stopped expecting anything and are surprised to find each other. Their love story is predictable, and it’s still satisfying, because both actors play it without forcing it.

Robert Pastorelli, as Huey, gives the film much of its comic energy, and Bob Hoskins, as the blustering editor, is funny in a small role. Jean Stapleton’s brief appearance as Pansy is warm and touching, and it gives the opening scenes a gentle, homely charm that carries through the rest of the film.

Nora Ephron

Ephron was one of the great writers of romantic comedy, and Michael has her fingerprints on every scene: the dry, witty dialogue, the affection for her characters, the love of ordinary American places and the gentle optimism. It’s less polished than Sleepless in Seattle and less tightly constructed than When Harry Met Sally, her most famous script, and it’s recognizably her work.

She co-wrote the screenplay with her sister Delia Ephron, Pete Dexter and Jim Quinlan, and the script has the loose, anecdotal feel of a story told among friends. Its jokes are character-based, and its sentiment, when it comes, is earned by time spent with the characters.

Ephron died in 2012, and her films have aged into comfort viewing for many people. Michael is one of her less celebrated works, and it deserves a second look. It shows her lightness of touch, her interest in lonely people finding each other and her conviction that small kindnesses matter.

A Holiday Film Without the Holiday

Michael was released on Christmas Day in 1996, and people often group it with holiday films, even though the story isn’t set at Christmas and never mentions it. It earns the association through its mood: generosity, forgiveness, second chances and the idea that grace can turn up in unlikely places, wearing a stained vest and smelling of cookies. The wide Midwestern landscapes and warm roadside diners add to the feeling of a trip taken with good company.

That mood explains why the film has a loyal audience decades later. It asks nothing difficult of its viewers, it’s kind to every character, and it ends with a small miracle for two lonely people. There are more ambitious films about faith and more sophisticated romantic comedies, and very few that are this easy to spend two hours with. Families return to it for the same reason people return to old friends: it’s reliably good company.

Where It Wobbles

The film is thin on plot, and some of its episodes drag. The romance between Frank and Dorothy is predictable, the tabloid satire is gentle enough to be toothless, and the ending, with Michael’s departure and a final miracle for the lovers, is sweeter than some viewers will like.

It also depends entirely on Travolta. When Michael is on screen, the film is funny and alive. When he isn’t, it slows to a crawl, and the supporting characters, likeable as they are, can’t quite carry it. It’s a 7: a charming, warm, slightly lazy comedy that’s much better company than its reputation suggests.

Craft Note

The Verdict on Michael

My verdict is a 7: a warm, gentle, funny road comedy built on one of Travolta’s most enjoyable performances. Watch it for Michael dancing to Chain of Fools, eating sugar and charming everyone in Iowa, and forgive the thin plot. It’s ideal for a cold December evening.

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