From: ecl@cbnewsj.cb.att.com (Evelyn C. Leeper)
Subject: Re: Prelude to a Kiss is the best!
Organization: AT&T
Distribution: usa
Date: Thu, 23 Jul 1992 19:37:55 GMT

In article <1992Jul20.230208.6909@athena.cs.uga.edu> jordan@castor.cs.uga.edu (Chuck Jordan) writes:
(*SPOILERS*)


> So, Meg Ryan and this old guy switch bodies.  First of all, Meg Ryan did a
> pretty good job of changing her "character" from Rita to the old man, and she
> was pretty believable.  It was impossible to believe for one second, though,
> that the old man had Meg Ryan inside of him.  As weakly as Rita's character
> was established, it was still different from the way the old man acted and 
> spoke after the change.  This is both the actor's fault and the director's.

I disagree, and I particularly watched Sydney Walker's acting when I
went back to see the movie again last night.  Both the acting and the
dialogue were perfectly in keeping with the character established for
Ryan, given that she now had the constraints of the older body (she
couldn't walk as fast, etc.).  Now how much was the dialogue (the
"teeth" scene, the comments about how everything goes well unless
you're born in the Third World or "in the United States without
money"--all serve to establish that it is Rita inside the man and how
much was acting is difficult to say.  But remember that Walker had a
lot of practice on the stage in this part, so I think his acting was
certainly part of it.

> But, after they change and then switch back, what happens?  They basically
> get the old guy to shove off and die while they go on having pointless
> conversations with each other.  Did he learn anything to make him feel
> better about dying or to see what it was like to be young again?  Your guess
> is as good as mine; he certainly didn't ACT any different.  Did she learn
> depth or personality by living as an old man?  Not that I could tell.  Did
> Alec learn anything?  Certainly not how to establish any kind of bond with
> the audience, and apparently his character didn't learn anything either 
> because neither one of them showed ANY kind of sympathy for the old man.

Okay, here's my take on this.  Peter and Rita blamed the old man
throughout the story because they thought it was all his fault--that he
had wanted to move to a younger body and so took over Rita's body.  At
the end they discover this was not the case at all.  And the old man
(Julius Becker, to use his name) realized that he was still an old man
in a young body.  This is one of the classic gotchas of
immortality--what if the body can live forever, but the mind can't?
Becker wanted to be starting life again--but he only got a young body
to put his old mind in.  And Rita got the security of having her life
behind her instead of ahead of her--but realized that wasn't what she
wanted either, because she had nothing to look back on.

In the end, they all realized that the original situation was better
than what they had brought about, and they returned to that.  Becker's
speech about motherhood may have been a little heavy-handed, but it was
consistent: remember that he (in Rita's body) early on tells Peter that
he wants to have Peter's baby.  (Clearly the standard English-language
pronouns don't work very well here!)

> There wasn't enough of a story to hold up for a whole movie, at least the
> way they presented it.  Again, the dialogue was really insipid.  And the
> characters were completely unlikable -- why did Kathy Bates agree to do such
> a pointless role in such a pointless movie?

I don't think it was pointless.  Part of that story was that Becker had
lost his verve after his wife died, which is part of what Rita and
Peter worry about as well, and part of what every couple worries
about.

My complaint, and it's a minor one (or is it?), is that the editing of
the kiss between Peter and Rita after Peter's phone call to Rita's
mother is far too abrupt.  Every other kiss is on screen for 15 seconds
or more (I checked), but that is cut after only a couple of seconds.
Yes, I understand why the studio probably insisted on this, but after
building the audience up, it was a bit too much like Peter's earlier
"and everything turned out wonderful" summary of his life when Rita
says that when he's finished, they can go back to her place.  In the
earlier scene, the whole point is that you *can't* just cut something
off like that, so it's doubly annoying to have them do this to the
audience.  The message this sends (perhaps unintentionally, perhaps
not) is that while it's true that Peter is in love with the "real"
Rita, not just Rita's shape, and this is wonderful, it's not quite okay
for him to feel that way.  (Did anyone see the stage play who can
report how this was handled there?)  I can't believe this editing
decision was Rene's, so I will stick the blame to the studio, who was
probably extremely nervous about the whole thing.  (Maybe, just maybe,
they will restore the scene on the videocassette.  I had heard that
there was a test screening without the kiss entirely, and that was
rated lower than with the kiss, so I suspect the audience has more
taste than the studio gives them credit for.)

Evelyn C. Leeper  |  +1 908 957 2070  |  att!mtgzy!ecl or  ecl@mtgzy.att.com
--
The most exciting phrase to hear in science, the one that heralds new
discoveries, is not "Eureka!" (I found it!) but "That's funny ..."
					 -- Isaac Asimov (1920-1992)
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