All of Me

Dir: Carl Reiner/USA/1984/91 mins

Lps: Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Victoria Tennant

Steve Martin plays a 38-year-old frustrated jazz musician, Roger Cobb, who is persuaded to give up his main love, music, in the hope of becoming a partner in the law firm he works for. Setting out to prove himself, he comes up against Lily Tomlin as the permanently crippled, dying and fairly obnoxious Edwina Cutwater. The problems start when Edwina explains that she intends to move her soul into the beautiful, young and healthy body of her stableman's daughter (with the daughter's co-operation) and so gain part of life she has never experienced. However accidents will happen, and Edwina's soul becomes lost in the transfer, eventually ending up as cohabit-er in Cobb's confused body.




If this were not a Steve Martin film it probably wouldn't work at all. However it does work, thanks mainly to Martin's wonderful impersonation of the archetypal schizophrenic: a person originally male, now half male, half female. This is even better, given the character of the woman, Edwina Cutwater, a rather staid and naive person who cannot cope with many parts of Roger Cobb's life. Carl Reiner does not avoid any openings for slap-stick comedy, rather he revels in them, but this does not stop a touching love story being enacted between the two main characters as they gradually start to understand each other's lives. 

HKC

Note: some of the medical terminology used in this this review may now seem outdated and does not reflect current views.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mona Lisa

Image
  Dir: Neil Jordan/GB/1986/104 mins LPs: Bob Hoskins, Cathy Tyson, Michael Caine, Robbie Coltrane In many respects,  Mona Lisa  could be called a love story. It's about an older man, who falls hopelessly for a younger woman. But, considering that director Neil Jordan's last film was  Company of Wolves , it is no surprise that, whilst it is certainly about love, in the words of the song, it's every love but true love.  After a stretch in prison, middle-aged cockney lad George played by Bob Hoskins (who else?) emerges into eighties London, estranged from his wife and amazed by a  world where computer technology and high-class porn are now big business. Given the job of chauffeuring a sophisticated call girl, Simone (Cathy Tyson), he comes to respect her and agrees to scour the porn-clubs of London for a young prostitute whom she knew in her early days as a streetwalker.  The film opens light-heartedly enough, no more than a sharp satirical comedy, but th...
Read more

Jagged Edge

  Dir: Richard Marquand/USA/1985/109 mins/Dolby stereo Lps: Glenn Close, Jeff Bridges, Peter Coyote, Robert Loggia A tense courtroom thriller, with newspaper editor Jack Forrester (Jeff Bridges) on trial for the murder of his rich wife, found knifed to death along with her maid in what appears to be a ritual killing. Glenn Close is Teddy Barnes, the defence attorney who reluctantly takes on the case, and, against her better judgement, becomes emotionally involved with her client. Jagged Edge moves rapidly along, playing with expectations and assumptions. The court scenes, whilst dominating a considerable part of the film, are as exciting and dramatic as the most physical of thrillers, interspersed with Teddy's developing relationship with Jack and her doubts and insecurities about her job. As the story reaches its powerful, tantalising conclusion, the suspense becomes unbearable, the real identity of the murderer remaining undisclosed until the last few seconds of the film. And thr...
Read more

A Room with a View

Image
Dir: James Ivory/GB/1985/117 mins/Dolby stereo Lps: Maggie Smith, Helena Bonham-Carter, Julian Sands, Daniel Day Lewis If you hated A Passage to India forgive E.M. Forster immediately, for the second of his books to be made into a film is a great success. The scene is Florence, 1907. Miss Lucy Honeychurch, with her aunt and chaperone Charlotte, arrive at their hotel and unfortunately find their room unsatisfactory (no view). The problem is solved by the socially inept Mr Emerson and his son George who offer to swap. The story becomes more complicated as love, Victorian social values and interfering relatives make their appearance. The photography throughout is beautiful (definitely a film to make you want to go on holiday) and the acting is superb. The two main actors, Helena Bonham-Carter and Julian Sands, have difficult jobs in not making their characters too stereotypical. Luckily, Lucy and George are just whimsical enough to enjoy without without becoming pathetic. Especially watc...
Read more