“One Man’s Marriages”

BARNEY’S VERSION tells the story of Barney Panofsky and covers 36 years in the life of this hard-drinking, cigar-smoking, hockey-loving Canadian TV producer and especially of his three marriages.

Barney is played by Paul Giamatti, and we can assume from the film’s title that what we see are Barney’s version of everything, in particular one event that resulted in the death of his best friend, who played a major part in the ending of Barney’s second marriage, which got off to a very bad start on the day of the wedding.

The film begins in the present, and we see Barney make a phone call at 3:30 a.m. supposedly to talk to Miriam, who was his third wife.

However, when a man answers the phone, he tells Barney that he isn’t going to wake up Miriam in the middle of the night just to talk to Barney.

Barney's Version MovieSo, Barney says, “Just ask her what she wants me to do with all these nude photos I have of her.”

Now, we never see those photos, and given what we will eventually learn about Barney, they might not even exist, but either that statement or possibly just the late-night phone call itself might have caused something serious to have happened to the man who answered the telephone.

Then we learn that a retired police detective has just published a book that claims that Barney got away with murder over an incident that happened in Barney’s past.

The movie then has its first of many flashbacks, and we are back in 1974 in Rome, Italy, where we see Barney living it up with all his friends.

Barney is the only one with a real job, and when the woman he is dating gets pregnant, Barney decides to do the decent thing and marry her.

However, Clara reveals information about herself that all comes up as a surprise to Barney, and when the baby is born, Barney learns that he isn’t even the father.

Then we switch to 1975 and Montreal, where Barney is working for his uncle, who introduces Barney to a nice Jewish girl from a wealthy family, who becomes Barney’s second wife.

We also meet Barney’s father, played by Dustin Hoffman, who is a retired policeman.

BARNEY’S VERSION is 36 years of one man’s very interesting marriages.

I’m Dan Culberson and this is “Hotshots.”