Soul Survivors

 

 

 

 

 

My favorite day is still Valentine's Day. I have a romantic bent, even though it doesn't show up very often on this blog.  Years ago I had a tradition: I would buy a carnation for each of the ladies with whom I worked for Valentine's Day.  Most of them appreciated the gesture. I never really had a girlfriend, and as such I never married, so I never had a wife. This tradition was my one outlet for that romantic side.  Unfortunately, in 2009 I was laid off from that job. I got the job back six months later, but I never reinstated the tradition. 

That said, that romantic bent never really took hold when it comes to movies.  I can count on the fingers of one hand the list of movies you might call "romantic" that I like. "Romcoms" as they might be called, usually don't appeal to me.  I make an exception for The Princess Bride, one of my top 10 movies of all time, because I generally don't think of it as a romantic movie, although to be sure, there is some romance in it. My attraction stems from the fact that it has some great action and some of the best repartee in movie history.

In addition, there a few other movies that are classed as romcoms that I actually like. These, too, appeal to me for other reasons than the "rom" side of the romcoin coin: Groundhog Day, for example.  The appeal comes from the situation that Bill Murray's character finds himself in. Dave is also classed as a romcom, but I like the part of Kevin Kline trying to fill the role as President even though he isn't, and not necessarily the romance part that develops between his character and Sigourney Weaver's character.

If you look at the archives of this blog, you may notice a couple more that fit the bill, but in each one of those, there is some other aspect that drew me to the film, not the romance.  This movie today really had nothing to draw me to it initially.  I just happened to come across it once several years ago and had nothing else going on so I watched a few minutes of it.  And then, by gum, I was hooked.  Of course, if it hadn't been for that initial set up, if it had just jumped into the story with Robert Downey's character all ready grown up and only then gradually revealed the part about his having ghostly companions, I probably would have switched channels.

 Interestingly enough, Heart and Souls is actually listed as one of the movies in one of the  Frightfest Guide books I have, one which covers "Ghost Movies". So I'm not the only person with my bent of mind that likes this movie.

The film stars Robert Downey, Jr in the lead role, accompanied by Alfre Woodard, Kyra Sedgewick, Charles Grodin and Tom Sizemore as ghosts. 

It also has David Paymer, an actor whose face you might recognize, if not the name. Paymer was familiar to me because of his role in a short-lived TV show I regularly watched in the early 90's, The Commish.

 

 

 

  Heart and Souls (1993):

The movie starts out by introducing us to the main characters who are still on this side of the world at this point.  Penny (Alfre Woodard) in a widowed mother struggling to take car of her kids. 

Harrison (Charles Grodin) is a man who wants to be a singer, but usually chickens out when he tries to audition and has never really tried. 

Milo is a thief who stole some valuable stamps from a kid and sold them to another guy, who may or may not be a mob guy,. (It is not actually stated as such but that's the impression I got) 

Wrapping it up is Julia (Kyra Sedgwick), a woman who is faced with making a decision to commit to a marriage with the man in her life, but is on the fence. 

Coupled with this are Frank and Eva Reilly (Bill Calvert and Lisa Lucas) who are expecting their first child. When it becomes evident that her time is due, Frank piles Eva into the car and races to the hospital.  Meanwhile all our main characters have boarded a trolley bus. The driver of the bus, Hal (David Paymer) is distracted by an amorous couple and ends up driving off a bridge, hitting the car that Frank is driving beforehand, the result of which causes Eva to have to give birth right then and there.  While Hal is immediately taken to Heaven, the four others end up being attached to the newborn baby, Thomas.

The four are not aware of why they have been put in this situation and end up staying with Thomas for the next 30+ years.  At the beginning they interact with Thomas who grows to love them, but realizing they are inhibiting him from becoming a normal kid they decide to disappear from his life. (How they figured out they could do that is never really explained.) So they are still stuck with him into adulthood, even though they can do nothing for him.

And at some point, even though they really don't want to, they decide they are doing more harm than good for the kid. So they tell Thomas they have to leave him. The kid is distraught, of course, and wants them to stay, but they do "disappear".  Of course, they are still there, just not present in his life.  After all, they still haven't discovered why they are attached to him in the first place.

Now it is years later. Thomas (Robert Downey, Jr) has grown up and is a ruthless business executive.  Julia and the rest are still hanging out, still unaware of what the point of it all is. (Imagine being tasked to accomplish something, not being told what that something is, and having to  spend 34 years not getting it done.)

Well that's all about to change.  Hal, the bus driver guilty of having caused all of their deaths has spent the past 34 years in a sort of Purgatory for his sins, being the ferry man (or trolley man, to be correct).  He returns to Earth because it is now time for Julia et. al. to make complete their journey. 

(Notice how I have encapsulated the four by just naming Julia? There's a reason for that. It simplifies things, for one, but also when I first saw this movie I developed a crush on actress Kyra Sedgwick.  She's still beautiful even today.)  

It turns out that the four had left this world with unfinished business, and God granted them a stay of execution to Heaven. They were supposed to use Thomas to help them clear up said business, either willingly, or if he refused, to inhabit his body and make him do it. (Now he tells them... .) Apparently God has a different ethical standard than you or me...at least different from me, anyway.

So now the four have the goals. For at least two of them, the goal is pretty clear.  Milo needs to retrieve the stamps he originally stole and deliver them to it's rightful owner.  Harrison (through his surrogate, anyway) needs to overcome his stage fright. (And what a way to do it... on stage at a B. B. King concert...) Penny, for her part, tries to discover what happened to her children.  Her two daughters are easy to find. Her little boy, Billy, is not so easy, as he was adopted but neither daughter knows what happened to him.

As a result of the indiscretions that Thomas (or really, the ghosts inhabiting Thomas' body) does, he is seemingly in constant contact with the police. And one policeman in particular, Sgt. William Barclay (Wren T. Brown) who collects for the parking  tickets Thomas has grown to collect over time. Barclay also  just happens to be on the scene when Thomas gets arrested exiting the stage after his impromptu singing at the B. B. King concert.

So what about Penny and her young son... ? Do I have to tell you who Sgt. William Barclay is (or was?)

The final soul left to rectify her past is Julia (hence another reason why I gelled the four ghosts...) It turns out however that when Julia left the bar and her boyfriend back in 1959, that the boyfriend had since died, having never married, and died a lonely broken man. Thomas is angry and yells at the trolley man (and God) about what kind of sadistic thing that was, but Julia sees it all in perspective and tells Thomas that the point was to make him a better man in his own romantic life. (Although how anyone could have foreseen that need is anybody's guess. Unless we are not the master's of our own destiny and it has all been played out in advance by the Supreme Being.  But that gets into a philosophical bent I'm sure the film makers never intended.)

Heart and Souls is not for everyone.  I feel certain that most of the guys who cringe at the idea of a "chick flick" will not be as enamored by it as I was, But it has some interesting things going for it.  It takes a full 30 minutes of the movie to get to the present, and another 10 minutes before the ghosts get active in their quest. However, there is one treat in that first 30 minutes that I would like to point out.  Julia works in a comedy bar. And on stage is one of the best comics of that era, Bob Newhart. (OK, so not THE Bob Newhart. It's actually his son, Robert William Newhart. But he is doing his father in such a great on the nose impression that for a minute or two I thought it actually was the real thing.  You have to be a fan of Newhart's stand-up  to catch it.  I recommend seeking out two albums that are ought there.)

But, anyway, the last 1 hour of the movie fairly fly by as pure entertainment, especially the scenes where Downey has to essay the character of the ghost who inhabits him at the moment. It's not on par with some of the other movies (or plays) I have seen where some actor has to pretend he is someone else in the same picture. (Face-Off comes to mind here, where Nicolas Cage has to convey that he has become John Travolta's character.) But Downey is pretty good at doing it. We have seen over the years what a great possibility that Downey can shine, given the right roles. 

To quote Ty Burr, a critic in Entertainment Weekly on this film: "You may hate yourself for liking [it], but at least you can take comfort in the fact that you've been had by professionals."  Trust me, its a decent date movie, even the guys might not be so turned off, especially with Kyra Sedgwick to look at, or to see a good portrayal by Downey in the lead role.  

Time to head home now.  I'll be extra careful when I see a bus coming the other way.

Quiggy