Heart and Souls (1993) * * *

 

Directed by:  Ron Underwood

Starring:  Robert Downey, Jr., Kyra Sedgwick, Alfre Woodard, Charles Grodin, Tom Sizemore, Elisabeth Shue, David Paymer, Wren T. Brown, B.B. King

Heart and Souls is corny, sentimental, and by its nature silly.  But it works, because why wouldn't it?  Yes, it sucks to die, but in Heart and Souls you can at least live on as a spirit attached to an unsuspecting person who adopts you as a non-imaginary friend.  In the case of young (and later adult) Thomas Reilly (Downey, Jr.), four spirits cling to him for decades (although they make themselves invisible to him from between ages 10-30).  How did this happen?  Thomas' mother was on a bus involved in a fatal crash one night in 1962 which killed the hapless driver Hal (Paymer), young mother Penny (Woodard), would-be singer Harrison (Grodin), petty thief Milo (Sizemore), and pretty Julia (Sedgwick), who just rejected her boyfriend's marriage proposal.

Thomas's mother survives the crash and gives birth to him shortly after, with the four ghosts inexplicably linked to the boy.  The ghosts are Thomas' best friends until they realize they are causing him to nearly be institutionalized by age ten and disappear.  Thomas then grows up to be a cold, ruthless attorney who keeps his sweet girlfriend Anne (Shue) at arm's length and drives around San Francisco in a new Mercedes which we know will be damaged heavily by the time the movie is over.  As Thomas is trying to gleefully foreclose on some properties, the ghosts reappear after learning from Hal that their purpose for hanging around in limbo is to take care of unfinished business before Hal takes them up to heaven in the same bus involved in the crash thirty years prior.

Milo would love to return a stamp collection he stole from a kid.  Julia wants to find the man she rejected and apologize to him.  Penny wants to find out her children's whereabouts and whether they're okay, and Harrison wants just once to sing in front of an audience without retreating from stage fright.  Thomas becomes their vessel, in some cases literally, since the ghosts can enter Thomas' body and use him as their conduit.  Downey's versatility is on full display, as he becomes the person who is inhabiting him.  Think Ghost times four.   When the ghosts each fulfill their missions, the effect is surprisingly stirring and warm.  Heart and Souls is harmless fun with, yes, a heart and a soul.