HELLO AGAIN: Blu-ray (Touchstone, Silver Screen Partners III, 1994) Kino Lorber
Upon its release
in 1987, the critics positively eviscerated director, Frank Perry’s Hello
Again – the movie that helped launch Shelley Long’s post-Cheers film
career. But hey, what do the critics know? Hello Again went on to attain
#2 status at the box office on its opening weekend and easily earned a whopping
$20,419,446 during its theatrical run. Not bad for an hour-and-a-half rom-com,
dismissed in reviews as pedestrian, inarticulate, and just plain silly. Well…yes,
to some extent, but in a good way actually. And anyway, any movie about a Long
Island frump who chokes to death on a South Korean chicken ball, only to be
resurrected by her tarot-card-wielding, occult-worshiping sister, can’t be all
bad. And this one certainly isn’t. Viewed today, Hello Again harks to a
certain innocence in the picture-making biz circa the eighties, and, for which
Shelley Long, in her prime, was already well-established, thanks to her tenure
as the delightfully annoying Diane Chambers on NBC’s long-running sitcom, Cheers
(1982-93). By 1987, the year Long chose to leave that hit-making series and
focus exclusively on her film career, everybody knew Shelley Long’s name. And,
also, by 1987, Long had proven she could hold her own, if not exactly ‘carry’ a
movie, costarring in the politically incorrect and hilarious, Night Shift
(1982), Irreconcilable Differences (1984), The Money Pit (1986)
and positively ‘outrageous’ Outrageous Fortune (1987). Aside: I
sincerely hope we will be getting Outrageous Fortune on Blu-ray from
Kino Lorber, sooner rather than later. Long’s great gift to the movies is her
ability to convey undeniable wholesomeness; on this outing, peppered with more
than a hint of clutzy charm that, on any other actress would appear just plain
idiotic and dumb, but in Long’s capable hands, comes across as unassumingly
desperate and wonderful. Cast as Lucy Chadman, the proverbial ‘fish out of
water’, Long excels at presenting us with a woman so eager to fit into her
husband’s world that she all but mangles every last opportunity to make a success
of these ambitions, despite her verve, and, his patience and understanding.
Hello Again costars Corbin
Bernsen, whose sex appeal was made secure by his big break as hot shot attorney,
Arnold Becker on TV’s L.A. Law (1986-94), a role tailor-made for the dashing
Bernsen, and, in which he would continue to toil until the show’s cancellation.
Bernsen’s film career dated all the way back to Elvis’ 1967 creaky musical, Clambake,
but thereafter, was repeatedly stalled, before being relegated to C-grade chuck
prior to Hello Again. Afterward, Bernsen continued to costar, only now,
commanding a higher salary and, in some fairly high-profile movies; 1989’s Major
League and 1991’s Shattered among them. However, the noteworthy in Hello
Again’s cast is Gabriel Byrne, who came to American audiences’ attention in
1987 after a formidable tenure in BBC-produced TV dramas and mini-series. Byrne
is, by far, the most accomplished thespian here, capable of acting circles
around his co-stars. The beauty in his performance in Hello Again is
that he is not trying quite so hard and never upstages his peers, but
nevertheless holds his own while holding nothing back as Dr. Kevin Scanlon, a
skeptic who, at first, doesn’t believe Lucy has come back from the dead, but
then, begins to fall in love with her. Arguably,
the flashiest turns in the picture are polar opposites: second-billed Judith
Ivey as Lucy’s eccentric sister, Zelda, who runs an occult shop in Greenwich,
and, Sela Ward, as the glacial bitch in heels/fashion plate everyone loves to
hate.
Hello Again’s screenplay by
Susan Isaac takes its time setting up all of these characters, allowing each
actor more than a few key moments in which to shine. Remember, everything here unravels in only an
hour and a half. And Issac is not eager to get to the punchline that kick starts
the action either. Lucy’s death and return come about midway through our story –
long enough for the audience to become invested in the life Lucy and Jason had before
her demise, and just long enough to get reacquainted with this past imperfect,
hopefully to lead us into the picture’s ‘hearts n’ flower’ finale. Still, Isaac
has spent her pages wisely, and director, Frank Perry, his run-time, better
still. Nothing ever seems overly rehearsed, rushed, or wanting for something to
say. Points are made and the plot moves on, with poignant vignettes devoted to
Lucy’s reunion with her son, Danny (Thor Fields), and ever-evolving romance
with Dr. Scanlon. It all works on a superficial level, for which a good deal of
these vintage Disney/Touchstone comedies from the eighties were well-known, and
even better suited to tug at our proverbial heartstrings while ever so mildly massaging
the funny bone.
The comedy here
is not of the ‘kick in your crotch’ ilk. There’s no ‘in your face’
Melissa McCarthy blue humor to taint the quaint and make it utterly appalling. Aside:
I am sincerely tired of shock comedies. Aren’t you? Hello Again is cute,
innocent fun, with adults behaving badly, only in the sense that they seem
genuinely oblivious and slightly obtuse as to what passes for tact. Perry opens
his movie with a close-up of Lucy Chadman, nervously biting her lip, practicing
her ‘introductory’ party schtick in front of a vanity mirror to impress
her husband, Dr. Jason Chadman’s (Corbin Bernsen) hoity-toity associates. And
while Lucy cannot seem to strike the right tone, Jason gingerly assures her she
will do just fine by being herself. The occasion this time is a dinner party
given by Phineas Devereux (Robert Lewis), the President of the Knickerbocker hospital’s
Board of Trustees. Alas, Lucy’s nerves get the better of her when some of the
fashionable mavens give her the cold shoulder, and, a party guest seated next
to her at dinner makes light of the fact she is ‘only’ a housewife and mother.
Lucy is proud of her son, Danny, who is aspiring to be a chef. Also, at the
party, Lucy’s best friend, Kim Lacey (Sela Ward); a stunningly handsome, but thrice-divorced
minx on the make, begrudging that the son of her third husband, Hastings Jr. (Austin
Pendleton) has since inherited everything. Back in college, Kim set her cap for
Jason. Mercifully, then he preferred Lucy, and arguably, still does. Asked by
Lucy if she should ‘be’ more like Kim, Jason explains the trouble with Kim is
that her only interest in men is what she can get out of them.
As a prominent
plastic surgeon, living fashionably on Long Island, Jason gets invited to all the
big hospital functions. But Lucy seems ever ill-equipped to carry herself with
confidence, accidentally setting fire to a barbequing swordfish during Phineas’
4th of July picnic. This amuses Junior Lacey greatly, as he too is a
bit of an oddball among this stuffy clan – his saving grace; he has more money
than God, and much to the benefit of many charitable organizations, including
the hospital’s fundraising for the new plastic surgery wing. We also meet Lucy’s
sister, Zelda – a mystic who owns an occult shop in Greenwich where she reads
tarot cards and makes charts based on astrological signs and numerology. Jason
tolerates Zelda, to a point, but finds her eccentricities a bit of an
embarrassment during his and Lucy’s hosting of a social gathering at their home
for the Knickerbocker trustees and their wives. Not long thereafter, Lucy allows Kim to take
her on a make-over shopping spree. It will be the final chapter in the first
act of Lucy Chadman’s old life. For, upon her arrival at Zelda’s shop to show
off her new dress, Lucy is invited by her sister to partake of a South Korean
chicken ball. Zelda is concerned about Lucy’s aura and for good reason. The chicken
sticks in Lucy’s throat and she chokes to death, unable to be revived in Knickerbocker’s
emergency room by attending physician, Dr. Kevin Scanlon. While Jason and Danny
sincerely mourn the loss, Zelda contemplates what the future may hold for her
dearly departed sister.
After accepting
a new consignment of occult books at her shop, Zelda discovers the secrets of
life and death in a dusty volume of ‘The Wisdom of Catagonia’. With some practice turns, Zelda arrives at the
cemetery, one year to the day of Lucy’s funeral, holding a ceremony by
candlelight. Her incantations successfully resurrect Lucy from the dead.
Appalled to find herself wearing the rather ugly dress Kim had picked out for
her on their shopping spree one year earlier, Lucy remains otherwise
unconvinced by Zelda’s explanation: that she was, in fact, dead for a whole
year. Believing no time has passed, Lucy skulks off, borrowing $100 from Zelda
for cab fare to return to the Long Island home she shared with Jason. Only now,
Lucy is greeted by a new homeowner, who informs her Dr. Chadman was the ‘former’
resident. Catching up with Lucy at the train depot, Zelda finally convinces
Lucy what has happened. Armed with this information, Lucy rushes off to Jason’s
fashionable Manhattan townhouse, shocked and shocking the hell out of Jason and
Kim, who have since wed, and, are in bed together at the time of Lucy’s
arrival. In short order, Jason reconciles Lucy has, indeed, come back from the
beyond. He takes her to Danny’s new bistro, managed by restauranteur
extraordinaire, Felicity Glick (Madeleine Potter), who also happens to be Danny’s
wife. Whew! A lot can happen in just twelve months.
Returning to
Knickerbocker’s emergency ward for clues to her extraordinary comeback, Lucy is
reunited with Dr. Scanlon. He is, at first, unimpressed by Lucy’s claim of
resurrection. However, when virtually all of the medical tests confirm that the
woman who died under his watch a year ago and the one standing before him now
are one in the same, Kevin’s medical beliefs are shaken to their core. Indeed,
Lucy is a one-in-a-million miracle. In the meantime, Lucy is determined to
begin her new life. Learning the daycare, she helped to manage, has since been
bulldozed to make way for a new building development, Lucy petitions Hastings
Jr. to cut her a check to establish another facility inside Knickerbocker
hospital. Enamored with Zelda, Hastings Jr. gladly bequeaths an endowment and
Lucy’s dream becomes a reality. Her joy is short-lived as haughty socialite,
Regina Holt (Carrie Nye) discovers Lucy is alive and wastes no time telephoning
Liz Smith for ‘the scoop of a lifetime’. In reply, the press descends upon Knickerbocker,
forcing Lucy to hold a press conference. Asked by one of the reporters what she
would like to say to the world at large, Lucy simply replies, “Hello again!”
The press has a field day, turning Lucy and Zelda’s lives upside down.
Jason is amused
by Lucy’s sudden popularity. Indeed, he has begun to fall in love with his
ex-wife again, incurring Kim’s wrath. When Jason agrees to meet Lucy for lunch
at Danny and Felicity’s restaurant, he inadvertently triggers his new wife to
launch her own counteroffensive to destroy Lucy’s reputation. Kim holds her own
press conference, proposing alternate theories about Lucy’s miraculous return:
drugs that can slow down a person’s metabolic rate to present the illusion of
death, and, the bribing of a funeral parlor to ‘stage’ the burial while Lucy
went off to live as a recluse with Zelda for a year. Asked to quantify or
dismiss these allegations, Lucy instead has nothing to add, believing her silence
will cast the glare of the spotlight on Kim and Jason, allowing her and Kevin
to begin their new lives together. Instead, the press turns against her. Phineas
threatens to have Kevin fired, and does dismiss Lucy from the daycare she
established at Knickerbocker. Rabid fans rail against Zelda and vandalize her
shop. Even the patrons who once packed Danny and Felicity’s bistro have stopped
coming. Realizing what she has done, Lucy decides to pull a ruse of her own.
Arriving at the
official unveiling of Knickerbocker’s new plastic surgery wing, with Zelda,
Hastings Jr., Danny and Felicity in tow, Lucy feigns going into a trance,
revived as the spirit of Hastings Sr. At first disbelieving, Kim begins to trust
her ex-husband, who died immediately after making love to her (according to
Kim, ‘he came and went’), has returned now to reveal the secret combination
of a safe containing riches he intended to bequeath to her before his untimely
passing. The caveat, Hastings Sr. demands Kim make amends for telling her lies.
So, Kim confesses to the crowd and the press. Lucy really did die and come back.
Now, Lucy admits to having faked the séance, chagrining her ex-best friend.
Jason is charmed by Lucy. She, however, is no longer interested in the life
they once had together. Kevin approaches, offering his sincere apologies and
confessing his undying love for Lucy. Believing she has found true love at last
– a prerequisite for Lucy being able to remain among the living – our story
concludes with Lucy accidentally dumping a cake off the balcony onto the
Knickerbocker trustees in the ballroom below. She, Kevin, Danny, Felicity,
Zelda, and Hastings Jr. rush off together. Under the movie’s end titles, we see
an album depicting the weddings of Hastings Jr. to Zelda, and Lucy to Kevin;
also, the pregnancies and birth of children to all of these happy couples.
Hello Again is feather-weight
fluff which, I suspect, was the gripe too many critics had with the movie upon
its release. With all due respect, not every movie has to aim for the next Gone
with the Wind (1939); nor, do I suspect, was this loftier ambition ever on
director, Frank Perry’s radar. What he has achieved is a light-hearted and
mostly enjoyable romp that never strains our patience or asks us to think too
hard about the implausible loop holes in the plot. Instead, he simply applies ‘movie-land’
logic to an already fanciful tale of love – this second time around – and, comes
up with a silly souffle that possesses an allure all its own. Shelley Long strikes
an indelible chord as the transmigrating soul who returns from the back of
beyond, twice as joyously ‘out of touch’ with reality as ever. While Hello
Again will not win any awards for great acting, the rest of the cast do what
is expected and carry their share of the load; particularly, Judith Ivey, whose
Zelda is a gloriously weird, yet even more strangely no-nonsense gal. The men
in Hello Again are mere appendages, never rising above their cardboard
cutout status. The most sincerely wasted is Gabriel Byrne, who senses his part
is consequential, but does what he can to make Dr. Kevin Scanlon a charming
second act romantic mate for our leading lady. Hello Again did well in
1987 and remains friendly and fun-filled today. Its premise has grown a tad
strained, perhaps because in the interim the public’s collective taste in movies
has veered off the rails into darker excursions, void of such out-of-the-ordinary
escapist fancies. That should not negate the fact that Hello Again was,
and remains, an excellent way to pass the time with good friends or lovers who
enjoy warming their hearts on a story that asks nothing more than to be
heart-warming and fun.
Kino Lorber’s
licensing agreement with the Walt Disney Co., brings more Touchstone movies,
for too long absent on home video, and never given their due in hi-def. Herein,
the results yielded an exceptionally handsome Blu-ray. Colors are robust, in
that dated and garish 80’s palette that many will remember with a warm fuzzy ‘feel
good’ for those happier times, and really shows off Jan Weincke’s
cinematography to its very best advantage. Flesh tones are accurate, if
slightly leaning towards a warmer tint. Contrast is excellent. There is a light
smattering of film grain, looking indigenous to its source. Age-related
artifacts have been eradicated for a simply smooth and wonderfully film-like
presentation. The DTS 2.0 audio is a tad strident. While William Goldstein’s
heavy sax-laden main titles sound magnificent, dialogue can, at times, be strident,
and always, very thin, with virtually no bass tonality. That said, this sounds
like a typical rom-com from the eighties. We get an audio commentary from film
historian, Peter Tonguette – well worth a listen – and trailers for this and other
Kino Lorber product. Bottom line: Hello Again is a cute little movie
that deserves to be seen again. This Blu-ray takes us back to the eighties and
then some. Now, Kino – pretty please, give us that other Shelley Long charmer
from Touchstone – Outrageous Fortune (1987), and other Touchstone movies
we long to see, starting with I Love Trouble (1994), While You Were
Sleeping (1995) and Down and Out in Beverly Hills (1986). Yes, folks
– keep the good times coming! And say ‘hello again’ to Hello Again. Highly
recommended!
FILM RATING (out
of 5 – 5 being the best)
3
VIDEO/AUDIO
4.5
EXTRAS
1
Comments