Taglines: He’s an angel… Not a saint.
Michael movie storyline. Frank Quinlan and Huey Driscoll, two reporters from a Chicago-based tabloid, along with Dorothy Winters, an ‘angel expert’, are asked to travel to rural Iowa to investigate a claim from an old woman that she shares her house with a real, live archangel named Michael.
Upon arrival, they see that her claims are true – but Michael is not what they expected: he smokes, drinks beer, has a very active libido and has a rather colourful vocabulary. In fact, they would never believe it were it not for the two feathery wings protruding from his back. Michael agrees to travel to Chicago with the threesome, but what they don’t realise is that the journey they are about to undertake will change their lives forever.
Michael is a 1996 American fantasy film directed by Nora Ephron. The film stars John Travolta as the Archangel Michael, who is sent to Earth to do various tasks, including mending some wounded hearts. The cast includes Andie MacDowell, William Hurt, Bob Hoskins, Joey Lauren Adams and Robert Pastorelli as people who cross Michael’s path.
The original music score was composed by Randy Newman. The dance scene and other location shots were filmed at the community center of Holy Trinity Catholic Church in Cornhill, Texas, and on country roads near Walburg, Texas, as well as at Texas’s Gruene Hall.
About the Story
Vartan Malt (Bob Hoskins) is the editor of a tabloid called the National Mirror that specializes in unlikely stories about celebrities and frankly unbelievable tales about ordinary folkspersons. When Malt gets word that a woman is supposedly harboring an angel in a small town in Iowa, he figures that this might be up the Mirror’s alley, so he sends out three people to get the story – Frank Quinlan (William Hurt), a reporter whose career has hit the skids; Huey Driscoll (Robert Pastorelli), a photographer on the verge of losing his job (even though he owns the Mirror’s mascot Sparky the Wonder Dog); and Dorothy Winters (Andie MacDowell), a self-styled “angel expert” (actually a dog trainer hired by Malt to eventually replace Driscoll).
They arrive at the boarding house of Pansy Milbank (Jean Stapleton), who informs them that she does indeed have an angel for a tenant and introduces them to Michael (John Travolta). Michael has wings like an angel, but the resemblance ends there. Michael loves cigarettes, sugar, has an uncontrollable belly laugh, tends to use a large number of non-angelic phrases, does not care much for personal hygiene, and smells like cookies. Michael informs his visitors that an angel is allowed to take a certain number of “vacations” on Earth and that he is in the midst of one now. However, this is the last vacation he is allowed, and he has decided to make the most of it.
After Pansy unexpectedly dies, Frank and Huey stumble upon a great story idea—if Michael wants to have some fun, why not take him to Chicago, where he can really kick up his heels? Michael reveals that this was his plan from the beginning. The rest of the film deals with the experiences that Frank, Huey, Dorothy, Sparky, and Michael have while driving to Chicago (Michael refuses to fly). During the trip it is slowly revealed that Michael’s mission on Earth is to get Frank and Dorothy together despite both having had bad experiences with love.
Michael (1996)
Directed by: Nora Ephron
Starring: John Travolta, Andie MacDowell, William Hurt, Teri Garr, Bob Hoskins, Robert Pastorelli, Jean Stapleton, Carla Gugino, Calvin Trillin, Catherine Lloyd Burns
Screenplay by: Nora Ephron, Delia Ephron, Peter Dexter, Jim Quinlan
Production Design by: Dan Davis
Cinematography by: John Lindley
Film Editing by: Geraldine Peroni
Costume Design by: Elizabeth McBride
Set Decoration by: Tracey A. Doyle, Jarrell Jay Knowles
Art Direction by: James E. Tocci
Music by: Randy Newman
MPAA Rating: PG for a mild barroom brawl, some language and sensuality.
Distributed by: New Line Cinema
Release Date: December 25, 1996
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