Themes: Trading Bodies, Reincarnation, Nothing Goes Right
Main Cast: Steve Martin, Lily Tomlin, Victoria Tennant, Madolyn Smith, Richard Libertini
Release Year: 1984
Country: US
Run Time: 93 minutes
Plot
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, All Movie Guide
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, All Movie Guide
Jerry Wunderlich - Art Director, Ray Summers - Costume Designer, Albert M. Shapiro - First Assistant Director, Carl Reiner - Director, Bud Molin - Editor, Patrick Williams - Composer (Music Score), Edward C. Carfagno - Production Designer, Richard H. Kline - Cinematographer, Stephen Friedman - Producer, Phil Alden Robinson - Producer, Jerry Wunderlich - Set Designer, R. Bruce Steinheimer - Special Effects, Marv Ystrom - Special Effects, Willie D. Burton - Sound/Sound Designer, Henry Olek - Screenwriter, Carl Reiner - Screenwriter, Phil Alden Robinson - Screenwriter, Kay Rose - Supervising Sound Editor, Ed Davis - Book Author
Martin plays an attorney named Roger Cobb. He is dating his boss' daughter and is also an aspiring jazz guitarist. Lily Tomlin is a difficult, eccentric, spoiled rotten, but oxygen-dependent millionairess named Edwina Cutwater. Discovering that she is dying, Cutwater wants to make some unusual final arrangements.
Roger is sent in to arrange her will, in which she wants to leave her vast fortune to Terry Hoskins (Victoria Tennant), her stablekeeper's daughter, with the idea that a culture-shocked holy man can use a mystical bowl to allow Miss Hoskins' soul to leave and Edwina's soul to enter her body, giving her the chance of a life in a less crippled body. Roger, unsurprisingly, believes the whole plan is "bananas".
However, the plans go awry and Roger himself ends up with Edwina's soul having control over the right side of his body and him the left, causing constant friction and problems between the two — amongst them, the loss of Roger's girlfriend and job. While their relationship does warm during the course of the film, things are further complicated by the revelation that Terry is a scheming opportunist who is planning to take advantage of Edwina's last will and testament and have her former employer's fortune for herself, having never actually believed that the soul-transference would work.
The movie ends with Terry's plot being foiled by Roger and Edwina. Rather than face life in jail, Terry at last consents to having her soul placed into the body of her stablehand father's horse. Edwina takes up residence in Terry's body as originally planned, so that she and Roger can live a happy, carefree life with her fortune. The final shot has Roger and Terry dancing, but in the mirror the audience sees that it is really Roger and Edwina dancing.
All of Me belonged to the production company Kings Road Entertainment and was distributed by the company through Universal Pictures in 1984. While Universal held theatrical distribution rights the company refused to have any participation with the film's home video release. In 1985 British media company EMI under their home video division released the film on VHS and they would continue to hold the rights to the film for a decade. In early 1999 Trimark Home Video purchased full video rights from EMI remastering the film and re-releasing it onto VHS as well as the new DVD formatting. In 2000 Trimark went defunct and sold their video library to Lions Gate Entertainment. In 2005 Lions Gate put the marketing of the film in their name and reissued another DVD format of the film. Lions Gate owns all rights to the film's home video formats internationally.
Trivia
Steve Martin and Victoria Tennant were married shortly after the completion of filming.
Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin would later work together again in The Pink Panther 2.
