I enjoy the work of Steve Martin, so this was a film I was looking forward to watching this film.Sadly though, it's not worth the time. It's slow, it's overly sentimental and all in all a simple waste of time.Steve Martin can do all out laughs, he's shown that in films like 'Bowfinger', he can also do quietly comedic roles like 'Shop girl'. However this one seems to be neither. His character is dull and the moments where he does try and be funny seem more odd than funny.We are introduced to unlikable character after unlikeable character and in the end you wonder where the 'comedy' in this touted comedy drama have gotten to.Overall - poor.

Michael McCann (Steve Martin)'s pregnant wife leaves him after telling him that the baby isn't his. He becomes a recluse who collects gold coins for stability. John Newland (Gabriel Byrne) is an ambitious politician with a proper wife Nancy (Laura Linney), an unreliable brother Tanny (Stephen Baldwin) and baby mama Marsha Swanson. John tries to buy Marsha off. After a car accident, Tanny runs off with the money and steals McCann's gold coins. Marsha ends up frozen to death in front of McCann's house leaving him with the girl. John Newland hides from his responsibility and McCann adopts her as Mathilda McCann. April Simon (Catherine O'Hara) is McCann's friendly neighbor.Steve Martin adapts 19th-century novelist George Eliot's book Silas Marner. The film has a sad surrealism which may not fit Steve Martin's public persona. The biggest problem is that the script struggles to bend the plot to fit. There is a bit too much happenstance and coincidences. The emotions and motives are sometimes awkward and wrong-headed. The movie does have some great moments of comedy and warmth that is reminiscent of Parenthood. The dramatic parts of the story needs a little rethinking. The trial is not particularly fun or dramatic. If only the moments of sweet humor can be transplanted into a better written story.

Near the beginning of what is in many ways a well done film, Stephen Baldwin's character is going to use, as he states it, his brother's " '66 Plymouth". The car is a '67 or '68 Plymouth Barracuda, not a '66. OK, so we'll not be too picky; we'll overlook that, even though it's sloppy details that make the difference between mediocrity and greatness. But then when they crash the car, it's the car's "driver's side air bag" that saves Mr. Baldwin. Please... I don't know when they started putting air bags in cars but it sure wasn't in the late 60's. Nit picky? Those two missteps are the beginning of a long string of details that we, the audience, are apparently supposed to be too stupid to notice. And that's insulting as well as annoying in a movie that could easily have been excellent.

As we all know, the real book, "Silas Marner" was first published in 1861 by "George Eliot". Well, in the time the book was published, women weren't "supposed" to write books like this. George Eliot's real name is Mary Ann Evans 1819-1880. Her understanding of the "Human condition" and the effects of loneliness on a person are greatly adapted into the book. If you read the novel, even though the wording of the book is different than modern English, well... that's part of the charm of the book. It takes you into a time when that's how they spoke. When considering the era of the book, and once again the adaptation of the movie "A Simple Twist of Fate", I believe that Steve Martin did an excellent job. Although... there's no substitution for the original work.