If you were one of the many people who lovedTalk To Me, did you ever think to yourself, “What if somebody took this concept but made it a rom-com?” As crazy as it sounds, that’s a more plausible idea than you’d think, as the idea of using body-swap/spiritual possession as a vehicle for lighter genre fare goes back decades. A film likeHeaven Can Waitused rom-com logic to explore the existential joy and terror of being able to try out new leases on life by having your soul be put into different people’s bodies. Another film that did something similar isChances Are, a mostly forgotten 1989 rom-com by the director ofDirty Dancing, and I assure you that if it were more remembered,it would be widely discussed as one of the more bonkers rom-coms ever made, with insane implications that it freely ballroom dances around.
What Is ‘Chances Are’ About?
Louie Jeffries (Christopher McDonald) is happily married to Corinne (Cybill Shepherd) as he makes huge waves in his promising legal career, until he’s tragically hit by a car.His spirit goes to Heaven, where he refuses to move on, insisting that he should be able to come back to life to be with his wife. The spirit guides relent, but Louie sprints away before the guides can give him a serum that will make him forget his former life. 20 years go by, and he’s reborn as Alex Finch (Robert Downey, Jr.), a strapping young journalist student who gets the love-at-first-sight bug for a nice girl named Mary (Mary Stuart Masterson), and the two have a will-they-won’t-they dating period where they share just one kiss (put a pin in that). When she invites him to meet her family,Alex is thrilled, until seeing her house and coming face-to-face with Corinne makes his memories as Louie comes rushing back, quickly forcing him to reconcile the fact that it makes Mary his daughter, and they definitely hada Luke and Leia Skywalker moment. Make no mistake, this is an abjectly horrifying scenario, one with dangling questions about incest and infidelity, and yetChances Areis so dedicated to being an uplifting and sunny time thatit stares directly through any possible discomfort and succeeds on the strength of its charming cast.
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‘Chances Are’ Succeeds Because of Its Stellar Cast
Rom-coms can be especially guilty of telling stories that have giant red flags all throughout the story and characters, but they still succeed with the actors' chemistry and the witty dialogue working together.Chances Areis a prime example of this, asit manages to negotiate its absurdity by juggling multiple important character threads that let the actors put messy emotion into impossible situations. The central conflict of Corinne realizing that Alex really is Louie has real bite because we see that Corinne hasn’t been able to move on from Louie, and Downey is so irresistible in his conviction to keep his marriage alive and Shepherd plays her scenes with the right amount of initial disbelief and then gracious relief. It takes time to show that Corinne has studied the concepts of reincarnation, which makes her wish to dive into trying to be with Alex land as more plausible. The romance subplot between Alex and Mary feels underdeveloped, more of an extra complication to keep the plot spinning, but Downey and Masterson are very cute together and there’s a juicy tension to Alex having to bat Mary off because she doesn’t understand why he’d suddenly lose all interest in her. What fares better is the other subplot of Alex’s friendship with Philip (Ryan O’Neal), Louie’s best friend, who was always in love with Corinne and has tried hard not to be a scumbag about it. For such a silly premise,the film takes all of these people dead seriously and never tries to overly force any of the humor, which is appreciated, since it all collides into a laughable ending.
‘Chances Are’ Takes a Wild and Unjustifiable Path to Its Happy Ending
The problem with working hard fora happy endingcan be that it requires the film to sandpaper its way past some obvious nitpicks and concerns that need to be addressed.Chances Arehas one of the hardest-fought-for happy endings in a rom-com, and it’s an unholy collision of swiftly-wrapped-up plot threads and the kind of decisions that’ll leave you with a stunned face like it’sthe end ofThe Graduate. Corinne’s affair with Alex makes her realize that she actually has loved Philip all this time, and she breaks up with Alex. After Alex injures himself by falling down the stairs, he’s visited by the guy from Heaven who was supposed to give him his forgetting shot.When Alex wakes up, he’s totally forgotten being Louie, and immediately goes back into a romance with Mary, who takes this change of heart pretty easily, all things considered. Alex ends up with Mary and Corinne ends up with Philip — everybody’s happy, problem solved.
The movie just wiped out a dead man’s existence, arbitrarily threw Corinne together with Philip despite her barely showing much affection towards him, and poor Mary just decides to go with a guy she hasn’t gotten to know all that well. If ever there were a happy ending that just didn’t hold up, it’s this one, and yet the goodwill is so high and the direction is so committed to being chipper and keeping on the sunny side that you kind of just don’t care, somehow. Sometimesyou do want to just throw caution to the wind and enjoy the headlong rush into the feeling of re-experiencing youth, and this film is nothing if not that. Come for the stellar cast dynamics, stay for the incredibleRod Stewartneedle dropthat’ll make you feel like a teenager in love again.
Chances Are
