REPLACING DAD; The Movie

NEW YORK TIMES, March 12, 1999
By Anita Gates

TV WEEKEND; Another Unmarried Woman, Not by Choice

Two decades have passed since Jill Clayburgh showed moviegoers in ''An Unmarried Woman'' how to take it in style when your husband leaves you for a younger woman and completely disrupts your perfect if charmingly chaotic life. Now Mary McDonnell does the same in ''Replacing Dad,'' a CBS movie that rises above the brave-woman-with-troubles genre.

The Marshes are just beaming with love in the early scenes. Linda (Ms. McDonnell) laughs as things tumble out of a closet at the family's idyllic beach house. Life is wacky but wonderful. She rushes to the school auditorium and stares adoringly at her husband, George (William Russ), the principal, at the podium. Their elder son, Drew (Eric von Detten), is blond, gorgeous and just rebellious enough to prove he's normal. Their daughter, Mandy (Camilla Belle), is adorable but spunky. And their 4-year-old, Willie (Hayden Tank), is appropriately precious.

But everything changes the day Linda turns up at George's office wearing a sexy dress and carrying roses only to find George nuzzling Mandy's fifth-grade teacher behind closed doors. Mr. Russ is no Michael Murphy (whose character treated Ms. Clayburgh so badly but broke so easily himself in the 1978 movie), but when George puts his face in his hands after this encounter, saying, ''Oh God, what have I done?,'' it seems awfully familiar.

Ms. McDonnell is the attraction here. She is such a fine actress and is so beautifully directed by Joyce Chopra that her shock, pain and intelligence mingle to uncommonly powerful effect. In one scene, a friend admits that she knew about the affair and confides to Linda that her husband is still not telling the complete truth. Everything in Ms. McDonnell's face reflects both her attempt to hold on to hope and the fact that she's too intelligent to deny reality. Her cry ''He's not coming back!'' is anguished; if only someone could make it not true.

David J. Hill gives the cast a solid script to work with. The film doesn't have the sassy charm of its source, Shelley Fraser Mickle's novel ''Replacing Dad,'' which was narrated by both Linda and Drew, but neither the characters nor their behavior is oversimplified. As Linda adjusts to her new life, looks for a job, tries to get the roof fixed and meets a man she finds attractive, the children react with varying degrees of maturity. (Little Willie puts on his Halloween bunny-rabbit suit and refuses to take it off for months.)

Tippi Hedren, who once specialized in characters with trust funds and circular driveways, does a nice turn as Linda's mother, a cheerful woman who relishes beauty pageants and goes out in public with big pink rollers in her hair.

The script occasionally flirts with cliches (does every woman who ever got depressed turn to painting seascapes? Does a handsome, recently widowed doctor always move to town?) and veers toward sentimentality near the end, but it makes a nice recovery. When ''Replacing Dad'' plays with the audience's heartstrings, it seems to be done with affection.

Written by David J. Hill and based on the novel by Shelley Fraser Mickle; Joyce Chopra, director; Rob Draper, director of photography; music by Lee Holdridge; Daniel Schneider, producer; Dale Eldridge Kaye, Frank Brown and Rhonda Bloom, co-producers; Judy Henry, co-executive producer. Produced by the Larry A. Thompson Organization. Larry A. Thompson, executive producer.

WITH: Mary McDonnell (Linda Marsh), William Russ (George Marsh), Jack Coleman (Dr. Mark Chandler), Eric von Detten (Drew Marsh), Camilla Belle (Mandy Marsh), Stephen Meadows (Charlie Pick), Cynthia Steele (Lucille), Michele Abrams (Ann Marie). Hayden Tank (Willie) and Tippi Hedren (Dixie).