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Definitely underrated
by CarlosC (movies profile)
Aug 16, 2005
4
of
5 people found this review helpful
Minnie Driver needs a new heart. Joely Richardson dies in a carcrash. As an all-around conscientious individual, Richardson -- an endangered species crusader -- had signed up as a volunteer organ donor, and Driver gets her heart. The only person left out in the cold by this arrangement is Richardson's husband, David Duchovny, who is left a young widower in the blink of an eye by the heart-wrenching tragedy. He spends the early part of the movie moping at home trying to feed his dog, who keeps waiting for Richardson to walk through the door. Duchovny tries to tell him she isn't coming.
Before long, Driver meets Duchovny, and it's basically love at first sight. Their road to romance is effectively flawless, save for the small detail that scar-conscious Driver fails to reveal to Duchovny that she has had a heart transplant, which information would also inform him that she actually carries his dead wife's heart in her bossom. Okay, this kind of stuff never happens -- except, in formula-driven Hollywood treatments, but this movie is charming enough that if one is willing to hold one's nose at the formula, the chemistry of the story bubbles up well. Part of the success of the story is in the supporting cast. The Driver character lives with a bunch of elderly, widower male relatives, including Carroll O'Connor and Robert Loggia, who run an Irish Italian restaurant. The seniors are a sterotypical hoot, but a hoot they are. They give the movie a palpable homey feeling that conjures up a real place: a warmth and a comraderie that tells us where this girl comes from.
Another reason it is hard to dismiss this movie as a dippy slice of corny Hollywood hokum is that it's got some sophisticated moves. Most impressive was the way in which it corners, almost seamlessly, from a tear-jerker tragedy to a spirited romantic comedy that is equally romantic and comic. With most movies in this genre, there would be a palpable residual bad taste, that either the tragedy was phoney, or the romantic comedy afterwards would be flat. Here, while not quite flawless, those elements are genuine and authentic enough that we go for the ride. Right after the Joely Richardson character dies, most comedies would not be brave enough to show us the depths of Duchovny's anguish -- but, this one does. That scene is tough to watch. Part of the difficulty is that the viewer intellectually suspects that an acute rebound is coming. But, the scene just plays out, plumbing the depths of this man's despair, and riding out our cynicism.
To say that a film has old-fashioned movie values has become a political cliché. What we mean to say is not that these movies are like movies of a by-gone era, but that these movies are not confined to a time. On the contrary, RETURN TO ME is like a wine that seems to get better as time passes and one can look back on it. Then, it's not just one of the last romantic comedies of the 90s. It's just good film making in any era.
(Carlos Colorado) |
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