On Criterion, I watched the 1987 romantic fantasy film Made in Heaven, directed by Alan Rudolph, and starring Timothy Hutton, Kelly McGillis, and Debra Winger. This was an interesting and nice romantic movie to watch, about life after death and reincarnated souls and trying to find love again with the same person.
Timothy Hutton plays Mike, who in 1957 gets dumped by his girlfriend (Mare Winningham), and decides to head out from his small town to go to California. He barely makes it out of the town before rescuing a family from their sinking car, only to drown and end up in heaven, where he is reunited with his aunt (Maureen Stapleton). He's drifting around, and falls in love with Annie (McGillis), who is a new soul who has never been reincarnated, and has never been on Earth. She and Mike have a whirlwind romance, where they can communicate telepathically, and plan to get married in heaven, only for her soul to be chosen for a new life on Earth.
Mike begs to Emmett (Winger in male drag, and going uncredited at the time) to be given another shot to be with her, and Emmett gives him and Annie thirty years to find each other again, where they will be new people and unknown to each other. Thus, the film spans from 1957-1987, where Mike is now Elmo, a struggling musician who is a hitchhiking drifter, meeting various rock star cameos along the way, like Neil Young as a trucker, Ric Ocasek as a mechanic, and Tom Petty as a bar patron. Annie is now Ally, who married an artsy director (Tim Daly) she met in college who was a fan of the French New Wave, only to make his career directing TV commercials to pay the bills, winning awards but feeling creatively unfulfilled. Both Elmo and Ally feel a void in their lives, but don't know what's missing, and have to take risks to take control of their own lives rather than just coasting and existing.
I really liked this movie. I do like romantic fantasy movies like this, as I previously enjoyed Defending Your Life, A Matter of Life and Death, and Always, so this went right along with it. I like stories about heaven and second chances at life or finding love again and all of that.
Hutton and McGillis had nice chemistry together when they played a couple in heaven, and I like how McGillis had this striking, mature presence to her as a 1980s star actress, in roles in Top Gun, Witness, and The Accused. Hutton was decent, more of a nice guy everyman type, and he seemed less mature when paired next to McGillis, but he was good to watch.
Debra Winger was the obvious standout in the film. As Emmett, she wore a short-haired orange crew-cut wig, chain-smoking with a rough voice, walking with a cane in a suit, and had this whole male drag persona that made her more captivating to watch, looking like Annie Lennox in the "Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This)" video. I wouldn't have recognized her if I didn't already read the IMDB and Wikipedia on the film. She and Hutton were married at the time, and have a child together, and I also think her persona seemed way sexier and more mature than Hutton's was, so I can't really see the connection they had. But even if Winger went uncredited and unrecognized, she still shined as an interesting character who appears sporadically throughout the film, reminding Elmo, who doesn't remember him, to stop screwing around and look for his lost love before he turns 30.
Ellen Barkin also had a fun quick cameo as a woman who charms Elmo only to quick con him out of his money, her little part felt more like she was doing a favor to someone.
This movie really seemed to have a thing for cameos. Winningham as the ex-girlfriend, the rock star cameos plus Martha Davis of The Motels, and Amanda Plummer as a musician friend of Elmo's, who helps him put together a song his past life self came up with in heaven, which Davis ends up singing and sounds very much like a 1980s ballad.
This was a really nice little movie to watch, nothing too memorable, but interesting to watch as a love story set in the afterlife and reincarnated souls.
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