Return to Me ... A heart warming, vulnerable, and funny exploration of the softer side of the fears and foibles that keep us apart and ultimately bring us together.

Bonnie Hunt stakes out her place as the creator (director, co-writer, and supporting actor) of this softhearted tale of two lovers who trip and tangle with their fears, doubts, and heartache as they face the dating scene as thirty-somethings. In a refreshing twist, the lovers are not as much scarred by the hurt of past failures as they are exhibiting emotional frailty.

Minnie Driver exudes vulnerability and longing as the overprotected Gracie. Throughout the film, she hits the right notes without overplaying them. As the movie opens, she wastes away as a shut-in needing a heart transplant. She cracks (literally, she is intubated and has almost no voice) that her dating prospects may not be improved because she is expecting a heart transplant, not a new ass. This is rich with irony, because as with most people, the lack of love is a matter of lack of confidence, not lack of assets.

Gracie’s prospective beau, a successful engineer named Bob (David Duchovny), comes onto the screen very much in love with a wife who directs a zoo and specializes in working with gorillas. In a contrast to his dour Agent Mulder from the X-Files, David Duchovny shows a delightful command of the soft smile, tender tongue, and sparkling glint from his eyes as he woos Gracie and charms his way into our hearts.

There are many delicious romantic vignettes in Return to Me. Gracie's best friend Megan (Bonnie Hunt) and Megan's husband Joe (James Belushi) live in an overpopulated household where Joe has to cover the mouth of his little ones as they repeat his swear words. The difficulty the young lovers have in accepting their basically compatible natures is resonated in a funny romance between two of the oldsters who live and work in the family restaurant where Gracie waits tables. We are treated to music from some of the masters of romantic crooning, dancing the old ballroom style, antics at a bowling alley, and many other delightful scenes. Our only quibble is that music and other background sounds from the film sometimes drowned important dialogue.

A modern love story in setting, Return To Me gains its power and dramatic and comedic tension through the acting, dialogue, and situation. With the emotional tone resembling the softhearted masters like Red Skelton, the film pokes fun at so many different, well-drawn characters. A host of veteran actors in supporting roles, including Bonnie Hunt, James Belushi, Carroll O’Connor, and Robert Loggia, charm us into the high spirited Italian/Irish world brimming with nostalgia and humor centered around the oldest preoccupations of humankind: matchmaking, romance, and sex. Some of the group conversations are amazingly human as the participants interrupt and trip over each other’s words in the Woody Allen style but without the biting irony.

Return To Me is a story for all ages, and most particularly for those who love movies but have an aversion to spectacle for the sake of impact. When Bob’s wife is killed in an auto accident that leaves his tuxedo bloodstained and his world shattered, we are spared the smashing metal and splayed bodies. This is perfectly fitting to set up the emotional dimension and tone of the film. Even though the characters are young, the sentimental grandmas and grandpas in all of us will revel in the gently mulled entertainment. Don’t misunderstand. This is not a television worldview brought to the big screen. David Duchovny writhes in painful grief as he weeps, then wails, then sobs himself to sleep on the stone entryway to his apartment.

Intercut with his grief is Gracie’s preparation to receive her new heart while her Grandpa O’Reilly (Carroll O’Connor) prays a heartfelt Rosary, and her best friend Megan wishes her well. Genuine warmth and understanding of such simple gestures allow us to empathize with the fears of surgery and the closeness of loss, even at the beginning of a procedure designed to bring life. These early scenes provide a poignant and visually and emotionally poetic contrast of two people dealing with different sides of death and life, hope and despair, love and loss. The set up made us want so very much for these two find each other and become lovers. Gracie lives and waitresses in a world dominated by charming, meddlesome, even cantankerous old men above O’Reilly’s Irish/Italian restaurant, run by Grandpa and his brother-in-law (Robert Loggia).

Even with her new heart and the health to race kids on bicycles, Gracie focuses on the scar on her chest. How many of us have the capacity for new love, new opportunity, new beauty, and yet find our attention glued to our faults, even real ones? Being too fat, too angular, too hairy, too freckled, too pale, too dark, too stupid, too geeky, too old, too young, too (whatever) may often become the dominant reality in our lives robbing us of the best we can have. Gracie is so affected, that she lies and hides her malady from Bob. Their love grows, but the weight of her secret becomes so heavy that when the truth comes out, he retreats, and she goes off to Italy to study her beloved painting.

The script and the direction delicately pace through the subtleties of heartache, longing, and self-doubt. The emotional storms that rage deep inside of the characters leave them voiceless but reflect through their expressions and actions. When the lovers finally unite, they bestow on us a powerful message about loving and being loved as we are and honoring the first love who, in her passing, opens the heart space for the second love.