Made in Heaven

A romantic movie about how someone can fall in love on first sight. What I like about this movie is its simplicity. They meet and they fall in love but as all relationships go, they lose each other. Unfortunately life is the reason. Elmo Barnett [Tim Hutton] must find his true love Ally Chandler [Kelly mcgillis] in life and he only has till his 30th birthday to do so. Kelly Mcgillis plays an emotional love sick adult that holds onto love that doesn't exist but in her mind it does. For a low cost movie I found it refreshing and emotionally strong.

Watching this movie strikes a chord like no other movie I have ever seen. I first saw it several years ago, and it gripped me from the top of my head to the bottom of my toes. I cried like a baby while viewing this movie... not because it made me sad, but because it "evoked a memory of an intangible experience I am not certain I have had yet".

I continue to be challenged by the possibility this movie represents... Whenever I see this movie playing on cable, I try to flick off it... but am inexorably drawn to it... and must watch it in its entirety.

Thats just the way it is...

Alan Rudolph's MADE IN HEAVEN is a pleasant, sweet-natured romantic comedy with a twist; the lovers meet in Heaven, after our hero (Timothy Hutton) dies, rescuing a family from a car that plunges into a river. It may seem familiar territory to viewers of Robin Williams' drama, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, in it's depiction of the afterlife and reincarnation, and the Albert Brooks' fantasy, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, which also involves a romance in Heaven (in Brooks' case, with Meryl Streep). Without the budget of the Williams' film (which won an Oscar for it's visual effects), or Brooks' occasionally caustic humor about Divine Judgment, MADE IN HEAVEN is a simpler tale, weaving in a theme of predestination between lovers 'meant' to be together, which makes it a perfect 'date' movie.

Hutton, dealing with being dead and in 'Paradise', appreciates the support of his Aunt Lisa (Maureen Stapleton), a long-dead budding painter in a heavenly Paris, but finds that he is lonely, and feels out of place. Then he meets heavenly guide Annie (Kelly McGillis), a new 'soul', who had never 'lived' on earth before, and the pair soon fall for each other, filling both his need for love and companionship, and her's, for an understanding of life, and passion. They marry, after being granted permission by 'The Boss', Emmett (an unbilled Debra Winger, who plays the male role very convincingly!)

Everything seems perfectly heavenly...until Anne's number is called to be born on Earth. Despite Hutton's pleas that the pair were 'meant' to be together, Anne's destiny cannot be changed...but he does convince Emmett to allow him to be 'reborn' on Earth, insisting that the pair's love would bring them together. With the understanding that his new life may not return him to Heaven, Emmett grants him 30 years to connect with Annie...or else.

In true soap opera fashion, the pair live wildly different lives, and have unfulfilling relationships with other partners, while each experiences flashbacks of the true love they had experienced in Heaven. Time is running out, however, and Hutton's 30th birthday is rapidly approaching, without meeting his soulmate...

A modest film, with a great supporting cast (including Tim Daly, Don Murray, Mare Winningham, and Amanda Plummer), MADE IN HEAVEN's theme, that Love truly DOES conquer all, is irresistible.

Grab YOUR soulmate, and enjoy it!

Great concept, with at times a great atmosphere. But it's weird, nonsensical at times. With a more subtle plot and more care in execution it could've been a classic but Made in Heaven ends up a bit of a drag and a mess.

At its heart it's an atmospheric romance, which is where it's at its best. But then out of nowhere there will be a bizarre comic sketch which simply doesn't fit.

Really liked it first time I saw it. Not at all second time.

A "chick flick" with some thought put into it, "Made in Heaven" reminds us why Timothy Hutton is such a good actor. His wonderful performance in a movie that could have been trite, makes the viewer love the "written-in-the-stars" romance that blossoms on screen. Hutton's character dies and goes to heaven, where he meets Kelly McGillis, who has yet to be born on Earth. The two fall in love and are married in heaven. When her turn to born happens, he convinces the powers-that-be to let him return to Earth and find her. Of course, neither one will remember their love in heaven....and therein lies the rub.