All of Me

MOVIE DESCRIPTION:

On her deathbed, mean-spirited millionairess Lily Tomlin has her will amended so that her soul will pass into the body of young, healthy Victoria Tennant. Thanks to a mix-up in transmutation, Tomlin winds up instead trapped in the body of upright (and uptight) attorney Steve Martin. The plot involves the fragility of male-female relationships, the importance of making commitments, and the antics of goofy guru Richard Libertini. As ridiculous as it sounds, All of Me is completely credible, thanks to Steve Martin's remarkable "body language" when conveying the notion that he's two different people with two different sets of emotions and gestures. Though the circumstances of the plot won't allow Martin to connect with the lovely Tennant, in real life things were different: the two costars were married shortly after filming wrapped. Phil Alden Robinson and Henry Olek adapted the script from Ed Davis' novel Me Too. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi

DVD FEATURES:

• Region: All
• Number of Discs: 1
• Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1 (Pre-1954 Standard)
• Audio: PCM Stereo
• Subtitle: Spanish, English, French
• Features:
  • • Closed captions
    • Cast and crew information
    • Spanish, English, and French subtitles
    • Movie trailer

AWARDS

• Hollywood Foreign Press Association

•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actor in a Motion Picture - Musical or Comed - 1984 (Steve Martin)
•     Nominated Best Performance by an Actress in a Motion Picture - Musical or Com - 1984 (Lily Tomlin)

• New York Film Critics Circle

•     Won Best Actor - 1984 (Steve Martin)

ADDITIONAL INFORMATION:

• Director:

  Carl Reiner

• Producer:

  Stephen Friedman, Phil Alden Robinson

• Screenwriter:

  Henry Olek, Carl Reiner, Phil Alden Robinson

• Book Author:

  Ed Davis

• Cinematographer:

  Richard H. Kline

• Composer (Music Score):

  Patrick Williams

• Editor:

  Bud Molin

• Production Designer:

  Edward C. Carfagno

• Art Director:

  Jerry Wunderlich

• Set Designer:

  Jerry Wunderlich

• Costume Designer:

  Ray Summers

• Sound/Sound Designer:

  Willie D. Burton

• Special Effects:

  R. Bruce Steinheimer, Marv Ystrom

• First Assistant Director:

  Albert M. Shapiro

• Supervising Sound Editor:

  Kay Rose

REVIEW:

• Steve Martin was honored with several critic's awards for his portrayal of a lawyer with the soul of a jazz musician who gets inhabited by the soul of a dead millionaire (Lily Tomlin) after a botched spiritual transference. Martin has a lot of fun with the slapstick built into the script, which frequently involves his body convulsing in different directions, with the right side controlled by Tomlin's character and constantly at odds with the left. It's a deft performance, and it lays the groundwork for some of the future work of physical comedians like Jim Carrey. But All of Me also sometimes feels like a one-joke movie, and in pursuit of that one joke, the details of the plot get shortchanged. Among the noticeable gaffes is that a memorial service is held for Tomlin's character only hours after she dies -- no wonder nobody shows up. Tomlin is a little flat, rare for one of film's most gifted comics, and Martin indulges too often in the sort of cheap sentiment that's been known to afflict his work. He goes from despising the woman who possesses his body one minute, to dewy-eyed compassion the very next. Still, the movie's gut-busting moments earn it a high recommendation, and it contains astute observations about the differences between the sexes that were funny in groundbreaking ways in 1984. The fourth consecutive (and, so far, last) collaboration between Martin and director Carl Reiner, All of Me keeps the hit streak going. ~ Derek Armstrong, Rovi