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It seems pretty naive and unsophisticated now, but back in the 1930s, when first Universal and then everybody else figured out that simply adding an element of sound could get the masses flocking to movies that scared them witless, the horror boom spawned a whole subgenre of evil-organ films. Inspired both by medical science's tentative forays into transplantation and the unsubtle cautionary message from Frankestein and its ilk that "there are things men are not meant to know -- besides how to properly sort laundry," Karloff, Lugosi, Lorre, Chaney Jr., and the rest paraded through a series of plots built around the notion that, if some twist of fate ever found them harboring someone else's blood, eyes, heart, limbs, chest hair, whatever, and the donor was not a nice person, or maybe not even human, they might turn into not-nice subhuman people too. Shucks, there was practically an entire sub-subgenre about mild-mannered concert pianists who receive murderers' hands then go berserk.
Since organ and tissue transplants have become relatively routine, we've arrived at the common realization that a kidney or cornea is nothing more than a very specialized, highly necessary chunk of flesh no more capable of personality than are toenail clippings (which is a good thing when you consider that 90 percent of household dust supposedly is sloughed-off human skin; how'd you like to pick up a Barcalounger for cheap at the Dahmer estate sale and suddenly find yourself compelled to buy a walk-in freezer and chase the neighbors around with Ginsu knives?) So you'd think that a movie about a woman who gets a little something extra from her new ticker would be just too cheesy. Well, you'd be wrong. And that's why movies are wonderful.
Taking a good step toward escaping his Mulder persona, David Duchovny stars as Bob Rueland (hmm...that's still a rather brooding surname), a successful Chicago builder and architect who's been nutso ga-ga in love with wife Elizabeth (Joely Richardson) since they were high school sweethearts. She's the primate curator at Lincoln Park Zoo, where Bob has promised to build a new, less cramped habitat for Sidney, her best gorilla buddy. At the same time we're introduced to Grace (Minnie Driver), a cardiac patient across town who hasn't long to live without a donor. It's not like I'm giving anything away, since the story has been spinning out in the trailers for months, but you can see where this is going, right? On the way home from a fundraiser, Elizabeth is mortally injured in an auto accident, and Grace winds up with a new lease on life. Inverting the typical tearjerker format, which usually takes a couple hours to set up The Big Cry, Bob gets devastated right at the outset, as does their dog, who sits by the front door every night waiting for Elizabeth to come home.
Jump to a year later, when the dog is still waiting, Bob hasn't once cleaned house, and he orders take-out every night. He has, however, become consumed with the zoo project as a tribute to his wife's memory, obsessively pursuing its completion to the exclusion of restarting any kind of personal life. Grace is doing great, physically anyway, riding her bicycle everywhere (without a helmet, which is ironic considering she owes her life to head trauma) and re-ensconced with the resident informal support group of retired widows and widowers at the Irish/Italian restaurant (the special is corned-beef-and-cabbage soufflé, and the Sicilian band plays "Danny Boy") run by her grandfather Marty (Carroll O'Connor) and his friend Angelo (Robert Loggia). But she suffers horrible insecurities about being damaged goods. Bob and Grace are lonely people -- though not for lack of effort from friends who try, with swimmingly farcical lack of success, to procure them suitable consorts.
Their lives are going nowhere until the story starts playing Let's Get Metaphysical. Strolling with her supportive, fertile best friend Meg (Bonnie Hunt) and brood at the zoo, Grace has passing encounters with both Bob and Sidney, prompting rampant deja vu. When he turns up at the restaurant (Bob, not the gorilla), the sensation gets stronger; she paints an Italian street vista she's never seen, which Bob recognizes from his honeymoon; they go out, and the dog tries to follow her home. Love and gratuitous bowling ensue, but she keeps her medical history secret too long, until, by the time she's ready to share, the truth regarding just whose heart she's using has become apparent, and that's one revelation too many for Bob. It doesn't take the Auricle at Delphi to recognize a final plot hurdle.
While this may sound rather Chris Carter-ish serio-creepy at first perusal, Return to Me is anything but -- after the first fifteen minutes, anyway. In her debut behind the camera, Second City alum Hunt, whose excellent supporting work has fleshed out things like Jerry Maguire and The Green Mile, does triple duty, also directing and co-writing (with comic writer/actor Don Lake, seen onscreen as a blind date for Grace with his own, more hirsute, transplant issues). While she shows some signs of the fledgling director -- a couple key transitions are rather abrupt, and she relies overmuch on long, overhead helicopter shots -- her script is first-rate, doing a great job of providing a full slate of entertaining back-up characters, each with a distinct, well-developed, believable personality. One scene in particular, where Marty and Angelo's poker klatch debate the relative merits of deceased Italian, Irish, and Polish crooners, is hilarious. She might have gotten Duchovny to loosen up yet a little more, but Minnie Driver's signature luminosity helps compensate for the fact that he's been chasing sewer mutants and alien werewolves for seven years. She fosters a chemistry with Duch that, though awkward at times, plays well to the story.
As for the idea of picking up feelings from donors, during surgery I once got a pint of blood from an Avon lady, and for the next month had an overpowering urge to ring doorbells and tell people what season they were. B
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