Taglines: A romantic comedy about finding love when it’s least expected!
Truly, Madly, Deeply movie storyline. Nina, an interpreter, is beside herself with grief at the recent death of her boyfriend, Jamie, a cellist. When she is on the verge of despair, Jamie reappears as a “ghost” and the couple are reconciled.
The screenplay never clarifies whether this occurs in reality, or merely in Nina’s imagination. Nina is ecstatic, but Jamie’s behaviour – turning up the central heating to stifling levels, moving furniture around and inviting back “ghost friends” to watch videos – gradually infuriates her, and their relationship deteriorates.
She meets Mark, a psychologist, to whom she is attracted, but she is unwilling to become involved with him because of Jamie’s continued presence. Nina continues to love Jamie but is conflicted by his self-centred behaviour and ultimately wonders out loud, “Was it always like this?” Over Nina’s objections, Jamie decides to leave to allow her to move on. Towards the end of the film, Jamie watches Nina leave and one of his fellow ghosts asks, “Well?” and Jamie responds, “I think so… Yes.”
Truly, Madly, Deeply is a 1990 British fantasy drama film made for the BBC’s Screen Two series, by BBC Films, Lionheart and Winston Pictures. The film, written and directed by Anthony Minghella, stars Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Jenny Howe, Bill Paterson, Carolyn Choa, Christopher Rozycki, Keith Bartlett, Deborah Findlay and Stella Maris.
Film Review for Truly, Madly, Deeply
For some time now I have been complaining about movies in which people return from the afterlife. My complaint is always the same: If the afterlife is as miraculous as we expect it to be, why would anyone want to return? I have my answer. They come back to watch movies on video. This is a relief. I would not want to contemplate going through eternity without occasionally being able to put “Five Easy Pieces” in the VCR.
My information about the afterlife comes from Anthony Minghella’s “Truly, Madly, Deeply,” a truly odd film, maddening, occasionally deeply moving. It opens as the story of a woman consumed by grief. Her man has died and she misses him and his absence is like an open wound. Then he returns. He steps back into her life from beyond the grave and folds her in his arms, and the passion with which she greets him is joyous to behold. He is back, he explains, because he did not die “properly.” He got caught in some kind of reality warp, I guess, between life and death, and the upshot of it is, he’s back. Oh, he’s dead. But he’s here.
The woman is played by Juliet Stevenson, as one of those intelligent but vulnerable women like Nathalie Baye plays in French films. The man is Alan Rickman, who you will look at on the screen, and know you have seen somewhere, and rattle your memory all during the movie without making the connection that he was the villain in “Die Hard.” He was a cello player in life, and now he is one in death, and he and Stevenson hang around the house all day, making ga-ga eyes. For various reasons she has to keep his return secret from her friends, who cannot understand why she has bounced back from profound depression into a state of giddy happiness.
All of these passages of the movie are convincing, in a strange way: This is sort of a “Ghost” for grownups. Then the movie takes a turn toward the really odd, as various new pals of the man return from the next world to join him. This eventually leads Juliet Stevenson to deliver one of the most memorable lines of dialogue of this or any year: “I can’t believe I have a bunch of dead people watching videos in my living room.” I do not want to reveal the turns the plot takes then. I will mention, however, the character played by Michael Maloney, who ventures into Stevenson’s life and falls in love with her and makes her choose between this world and the next. His character is truly goofy, and charming, and in his own indirect way he leads the movie toward some truths that are, the more you think about them, really pretty profound.
Truly, Madly, Deeply (1991)
Directed by: Anthony Minghella
Starring: Juliet Stevenson, Alan Rickman, Jenny Howe, Bill Paterson, Carolyn Choa, Christopher Rozycki, Keith Bartlett, Deborah Findlay, Stella Maris
Screenplay by: Anthony Minghella
Production Design by: Barbara Gosnold
Cinematography by: Remi Adefarasin
Film Editing by: John Stothart
Costume Design by: James Keast
Art Direction by: Jim Holloway
Music by: Barrington Pheloung
MPAA Rating: PG for mature theme and mild language.
Distributed by: The Samuel Goldwyn Company
Release Date: May 3, 1991
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