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Saturday, Nov 28, 2009
David Duchovny and Minnie Driver star in a movie that almost seems like a godsend in this age of romantic-comedy schmaltz.
Apr 7, 2000 | The state of romantic comedies has been so dismal in the past few years that a charming if minor picture like "Return to Me" is like a godsend. In her directorial debut, Bonnie Hunt (who also co-wrote the story and screenplay, and has a supporting role) doesn't emerge as the long-lost heir to Preston Sturges or Howard Hawks. Her picture wobbles a bit in places, and there are moments when it's a bit too winkly and twinkly. It can't completely divorce itself from the fact that we're only just now awakening from the Dark Ages of Nora Ephron, that bleak period in romantic-comedy history when directors seemed to believe that charm needed to be slapped on with a trowel lest the audience miss it.
But when, in the hours and days after you've seen it, a movie leaves you pondering its lovelier qualities rather than its faults, you know it has done something right. When I looked back on "Return to Me," I realized that even though its approach was occasionally a little too simplistic, there were very few times when I felt it had insulted my intelligence. A mainstream romantic comedy that serves up a believable, cakelike slice of love but also allows you to emerge with your dignity intact is all too rare these days.
If the premise of "Return to Me" sounds too nutty or contrived at the beginning, it ends up settling into a surprisingly pleasant rhythm. Architect Bob (David Duchovny) is madly in love with his wife, Elizabeth (Joely Richardson), an ape specialist who has taught sign language to a lovable gorilla, Sidney, at the local zoo. Elizabeth dies unexpectedly, and Bob is heartbroken; but her heart is transplanted into the body of Grace (Minnie Driver), a young woman who's been ailing since the age of 14. Grace works as a waitress at the Irish-Italian restaurant (and if that detail makes you groan, you're not alone) run by her grandfather Marty (Carroll O'Connor, doing an all-too-cute and horribly annoying Irish accent) and his buddy Angelo (Robert Loggia).
The restaurant is one of those warm, Cheers-like places where everybody knows your name, peopled by Marty and Angelo's cronies and an assortment of other suitably colorful characters. Eventually Bob and Grace meet, though he has no idea that it's his wife's heart that's beating inside her, and the two of them fall madly in love.
"Return to Me" is one of those movies that could easily hang you up if you set too much store by the plausibility of its setup. But it's also the kind of movie that speaks mostly through its details, rather than through its somewhat obvious plot contrivances. For one thing, the two leads are both incredibly appealing. I've never much cared for Driver as an actress. She has always made it too painfully clear that she works hard at her job, trying to put so much bite into her performances (particularly her plasticky, clenched-jaw Mabel Chiltern in "An Ideal Husband") that they just left me feeling more adamant about not buying her bill of goods.
But her Grace is so relaxed and so natural that I found it impossible to dislike her. (It's important not to be put off by the fact that early in the movie we see her lying in a hospital bed, speaking faintly through parched and cracked blue lips as she awaits her heart transplant.) In her scenes with Duchovny, her cautiousness and uncertainty play out with an appealing freshness -- she's as sweet as a country girl without being sickeningly disingenuous. When Bob shows up at the restaurant unannouced and catches her in pajamas, raincoat and fetching shower cap (she lives in a little apartment above the restaurant and has just rushed out to cover some plants to protect them from the cold), it's obvious how silly she feels -- she makes it clear just by the way she flashes her eyes. But she doesn't play it as slapstick, and she doesn't even remove the silly cap: Her explanation is simply that doing so would only give her "shower-cap head." The scene is lovely in part because of the way Duchovny looks so smitten with her, bonnet and all; in fact, it seems to make him love her more.
