Taglines: A comedy about romance and other perilous adventures.
Year of the CometYear of the Comet movie storyline. Margaret Harwood (Penelope Ann Miller), the mousy daughter of esteemed wine merchant Sir Mason Harwood (Ian Richardson), discovers a magnum of wine, vintage 1811, bearing Napoleon’s seal. Sir Mason instantly offers it to his best customer, T.T. Kelleher (Rimmer), who sends his friend, Oliver Plexico (Tim Daly) to retrieve it.
Three other interested parties converge on the valuable rarity: a Greek billionaire, to whom Margaret’s unscrupulous brother has independently sold the bottle; an amoral French scientist (Jourdan), who believes it contains the secret to a rejuvenation formula that he will kill to obtain; and a murderous thug (Brimble), who wants to sell it himself.
The bottle changes hands several times as the parties race across Europe from the Scottish Highlands to Èze. In the end, the criminals are defeated, and Margaret and Oliver fall in love. Sir Mason offers the bottle in private auction to both the legitimate “owners”, but they are outbid by Oliver, who is revealed as a multimillionaire adventurer scientist. Against advice, Oliver opens the $5 million bottle and freely shares the excellent wine.
Year of the Comet is a 1992 romantic comedy adventure film about the pursuit of the most valuable bottle of wine in history. The title refers to the year it was bottled, 1811, which was known for the Great Comet of 1811, and also as one of the best years in history for European wine. It stars Tim Daly, Penelope Ann Miller and Louis Jourdan in his last film role prior to his retirement from film acting. Peter Yates directed William Goldman’s original screenplay. Executive Producers: Alan Brown, Phil Kellogg.
Film Review for Year of the Comet
A female wine taster (Miller) is sent to Scotland to evaluate a collection and while on the job meets a representative for a buyer (Daly). They instantly spar off each other before, in that traditional Hollywood way, becoming a smitten couple. But that’s not all, they must also find a bottle of immortality that the film’s villain has carelessly left lying around.
This is the first original, as opposed to adapted, screenplay written by ace wordsmith William Goldman since Butch Cassidy And The Sundance Kid, and it’s hard not to feel from its unfashionable tone that it’s been lying around on a shelf quietly gathering dust since shortly after the release of that career-making Western in 1969. With its cosmopolitan locations (a Scots isle, the Riviera), bickering romantic leads (imagine Doris and Rock) and comedy-caper plotting (remember Hudson Hawk?), it seems to have been intended as one of those late 60s glossies (there’s even a psychedelic trip sequence) but been abandoned until Peter Yates, in his own career quandary, hit upon the project.
Penelope Ann Miller is a repressed wine expert sent to Scotland to evaluate a cellar which turns out to contain a vintage bottled in the eponymous year of the comet. Tim Daly, the one in Diner who didn’t become a star, is a troubleshooter for the bottle’s would-be purchaser (Shane “Scott Tracy” Rimmer), who irritates the girl but eventually wins her. Louis Jourdan is also around as a suave baddie whose immortality formula has been hidden under the label of the bottle.
People try to steal the wine from each other, and Miller and Daly get to crash helicopters, scale walls, struggle underwater, trade quips and do motorcycle stunts as they try to get back the goods. With a script that has turned to vinegar in the bottle, nobody could have pulled off the lead roles. Faced with running jokes about chiropractors, Miller and Daly simply copy mannerisms from Tom Selleck in his moustache period and Shelley Long in early Cheers mode, a tactic which even Selleck and Long were even dissuaded from pursuing. Rent Hudson Hawk instead, at least thatwas a heroic failure.
On paper this could have been an action romance in the vein of Romancing the Stone, but as it turns out, it comes nowhere close. With poor dialogue, poor acting, a lack of chemistry between the leads and a ridiculous plot, Year of the Comet, isn’t even an enjoyable way to spend an hour-and-a-half of your time.
Year of the Comet (1992)
Directed by: Peter Yates
Starring: Penelope Ann Miller, Tim Daly, Louis Jourdan, Ian Richardson, Art Malik, Tim Bentinck, Julia McCarthy, Jacques Mathou, Arturo Venegas, Chapman Roberts
Screenplay by: William Goldman
Production Design by: Anthony Pratt
Cinematography by: Roger Pratt
Film Editing by: Ray Lovejoy
Costume Design by: Marilyn Vance
Set Decoration by: Stephenie McMillan
Art Direction by: Desmond Crowe, Chris Seagers
Music by: Hummie Mann
MPAA Rating: PG-13 for a scene of sensuality.
Distributed by: Columbia Pictures
Release Date: April 24, 1992
Views: 226
