Main Cast: Shelley Long, Judith Ivey, Gabriel Byrne, Corbin Bernsen, Sela Ward
Release Year: 1987
Country: US
Run Time: 96 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG
Plot
Writer Susan Isaacs and director Frank Perry of Compromising Positions re-team for this unsuccessful resurrection fantasy comedy. Shelley Long plays Lucy Chadman, the accident-prone wife of plastic surgeon Jason Chadman (Corbin Bernsen). When she chokes to death after eating a South Korean chicken ball, a funeral is held and she is mourned, but then everyone goes on with their lives and forgets about her. Everyone, that is, except her sister Zelda (Judith Ivey). Zelda runs an occult bookstore and as she peruses one of her books of incantations, she discovers a magical chant that can raise the dead. Obeying the rules of the incantation -- it has to be performed a year after the person dies and the resurrected person must find love within 30 days or the person will die again -- she brings back Lucy to life. Lucy immediately proceeds to her husband's home and finds that he is married to her best friend Kim (Sela Ward). She now has to deal with the changed circumstances of her husband, along with a burgeoning love affair with Kevin Scanlon (Gabriel Byrne), the emergency-room doctor who had tried to save her life. ~ Paul Brenner, All Movie Guide
Austin Pendleton - Junior Lacey; Carrie Nye - Regina Holt; Robert M. Lewis - Phineas Devereux; Madeleine Potter - Felicity; Thor Fields - Danny Chadman; Elkan Abramowitz - Burns; John Cunningham - Bruce Holt; Illeana Douglas - Woman in Park; Mary Fogarty - Maid; Colin Fox - Clergyman; Patricia Gage - Bejewelled Woman; I.M. Hobson - Butler; Kaiulani Lee - Miss Lee; Kate McGregor-Stewart; Everett Quinton - Occultist; Shirley Rich - Miss Tammy; Marcell Rosenblatt; John Rothman - Bearded man; Karen Shallo - Wig-Pulling Woman; Lynne Thigpen; Anna Marie Wieder - Reporter; Chip Zien; Susan Isaacs; Suzanne Barnes - Jason's Nurse; Mary Armstrong - Financial Newscaster; Elyzebeth Chrystea - Lady at Party; Rose Indri - Plastic Surgery Patient; Robert Lempert - Reporter; Paul Royce - Hospital Bystander; Debra D. Stewart - E.R. Nurse; John Tillinger - T.V. Moderator; Royce Rich; Catherine Tambini
Credit
William Barclay - Art Director, Steven Saxton - Associate Producer, John Lyons - Casting, Donna Isaacson - Casting, Sandra Culotta - Costume Designer, Ruth Morley - Costume Designer, Joel B. Segal - First Assistant Director, Frank Perry - Director, Peter C. Frank - Editor, Farrel Jane Levy - Editor, Trudy Ship - Editor, William Goldstein - Composer (Music Score), Kathryn Bihr - Makeup, Mickey Scott - Makeup, Edward Pisoni - Production Designer, Jan Weincke - Cinematographer, Thomas Folino - Producer, Susan Isaacs - Producer, Martin Mickelson - Producer, Frank Perry - Producer, G. Mac Brown - Producer, Robert Franco - Set Designer, Gary Alper - Sound/Sound Designer, Susan Isaacs - Screenwriter
Long Island housewife Lucy Chadman chokes to death on a South Korean Chicken Ball, but is brought back to life by her occult sister, Zelda, one year later and soon discovers that she cannot simply pick her life back up where she left off. She returns to find her widower husband has married her greedy and double-crossing friend from college. Her son, meanwhile, has opened his own restaurant and married.
When she returns to the hospital at which she died, the emergency room doctor who tried to revive her begins to fall for her. Zelda confides in the doctor that if Lucy does not find love by the next full moon, she will have to go back to the spirit world. He does not believe her. Eventually the press finds out that Lucy came back from the dead, and plague her, her family, and the hospital the ER doctor works at. Her college friend becomes jealous of her media attention and the attention Lucy is getting from Mr. Chadman. She holds a news conference of her own and tells the media Lucy made the whole thing up. Lucy does not defend herself, as she sees this as an opportunity to rid herself and her friends of the media. Instead, the doctor gets fired, her sister's occult store is vandalized and she is hated by almost everyone, except her family. She decides to end the debacle once and for all by tricking her college friend into admitting she lied about Lucy faking her death in front of the media at a party the hospital is having. Lucy, the doctor, and her family walk away happily.
