with confidence without making it farcical.

Meg Ryan plays the role of Rita credibly; you get a chance in the first part of the film to get to know her character well enough to see the difference when the soul swap takes place. This is not surprising as we're used to seeing Ryan in these roles romantic, sometimes ditzy but mostly loveable. Rita is a pretty young woman with some of these characteristics but only somewhat bitter about certain aspects of life, she is scared of living and doesn't want kids, so on the surface it doesn't seem as if she has too much in common with the man she falls in love with. When Julius' soul takes her over we see an optimist who wants to make the most of life and suddenly wants to have children and looks forward to each new experience and even cherishes it. This is very confusing for her new husband obviously and although he wants children he can't understand his bride's sudden change of heart and pretty much whole change of persona. Alec Baldwin was just perfect for me in this role. He adores his wife and marries her even knowing she doesn't want kids and thinks the whole will end horribly and is pretty perturbed about her sudden turnaround about such important aspects of their lives. He plays the role so superbly for me. A scene where he gets an idea of what's going on was so touching that I felt rather tearful but I don't want to give away any more of the story. He was so convincing this is when you think This guy can act! But really, I felt the same way about Ryan and Walker too, so it was an all round team effort on the part of all 3 leads. You really believe they are those people no matter how incredible the plotline might be, in those touching moments between the leads in several parts of the film you really think it's all real. Well I did anyway!

If there's a moral to the story, I guess one could say it teaches you to appreciate what you have whilst you still have time. How many of us whine all day about the smaller things in life and don't appreciate how much time we have to enjoy life and fix those little things that we make such a fuss about? We all do it. Ask someone who has been told they just have months to live how much they more time they would like to live to enjoy things. I'm not getting preachy here, I'm just reflecting on how the film made me feel at the end of it.

I haven't seen the play nor do I wish to. The film is a different entity to the stage play as far as I'm concerned. Of late I'm trying to get a different level of enjoyment from reading a book and watching a film version or knowing a play and seeing the film version. I enjoyed the film enough that I would watch it again. If you enjoy films of the romantic/slightly fantasy genre, I would hope you would enjoy this film.

I'm going to give a decent 4 out of 5 stars from me for this sweet film. Try to remember the story is a rather fantastical so you'll need to suspend your disbelief at what takes place when the souls switch between healthy beautiful young woman and aging diseased and dying man but let yourself enjoy the ride.

TECHNICAL STUFF

Film release date: July 1992

Director: Norman Rene

Co-stars: Kathy Bates, Ned Beatty, Patty Duke

Run time: 110 minutes

Classification: PG-13

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