Prelude to a Kiss Synopsis: A couple fall in love despite the girl’s pessimistic outlook. As they struggle to come to terms with their relationship, something supernatural happens that tests it.
Hey! It’s been a while! Thanks to work, I haven’t had a lot of time to watch movies, but my rom-com itch needed to be scratched, so here we go! Prelude to a Kiss is a movie I found on Hulu today in a quick attempt to find something, anything! I remember seeing the trailer for this movie a long, long time ago. Really, the only thing I remembered about it was Meg Ryan getting kissed on her wedding day and there being… wind? In any case, I’ve never seen it until now, and honestly, I had no idea what it was really about, so I went in semi-blind.
Rita and Peter meet at a party and begin seeing each other. Rita has a pretty pessimistic view of life, but that doesn’t stop the two from falling in love and planning to get married. At the wedding, an elderly man arrives and kisses the bride, inadvertently triggering a supernatural event that causes Rita and the old man, named Julius, to switch bodies. And, of course, this is where things get weird…
I do have to say that Meg Ryan is as cute as a button in this movie. And I like that she played a character with a somewhat cynical view of the world, rather than the typical girl-next-door role she’s known for. Alec Baldwin is fine as Peter, the “straight man” to Rita’s free spirit.
They had nice energy together, but Prelude to a Kiss was most interesting when Ryan was on screen… and playing Rita. As soon as Julius inhabited her body, she got very subdued, which I understand as it’s not really Rita, but that spark she had was gone, so I can understand why the movie shifted focus to Peter and his discovery that his wife is stuck inside the body of an elderly man.
Sydney Walker, who played the role of Julius in the 1988 stage production of Prelude to a Kiss, was given the role in the feature film after Alec Guinness had to drop out. He’s really fantastic here, both as an aimless old man who recently lost his wife and as Rita after the body swap.
He’s not as out there with it as like, say, Jack Black in Jumanji, but he does a really nice job at capturing Rita’s essence and making the situation both moving and humorous. Now, there are a few moments when Julius is Rita on their honeymoon, and he/she asks Peter to put a baby in her. That made me pause a bit… um… but, hey, it was funny, so I guess it didn’t make weird me out enough to turn it off!
Prelude to a Kiss takes a while to get moving. The first forty minutes are dedicated to Rita and Peter’s burgeoning relationship, slogging a bit to the finish line of marriage to kick-start the real story. I enjoyed a few moments, but it felt like it was more time filler than anything substantial. If we’re supposed to be watching a fantasy rom-com, give me a falling-in-love montage and get to the good stuff.
I don’t know that the devotion to showing us Peter and Rita’s progressing relationship really added much to the movie. I’m not even sure I bought that they were in love, either. Rita always seemed a bit distant, like she had one foot out the door, even up to the wedding day. That being said, I still enjoyed watching Peter struggle with non-Rita Rita and then work with Julius-Rita to figure out how to get his wife back. Lessons needed to be learned for the two of them to move forward happily, you know? You know.
Kathy Bates and Richard Riehle have small roles as Julius’s daughter and son-in-law, but they’re solely underused. Ned Beatty and Patty Duke play Rita’s parents, and they’re pretty enjoyable for the small amount of time they have on screen. Oh, oh! And Stanley Tucci appears here as Peter’s co-worker and best friend, and since it’s Stanley Tucci, you know I enjoyed it. In the rom-com universe, finding him in a movie is like when Judy Greer or Joan Cusack show up. It’s a definite, automatic bonus.
I would recommend Prelude to a Kiss if you’re looking for a fantasy-based rom-com. The stage production was only 70 minutes, but the movie is fleshed out to a decent 105, even if, like I said, the beginning drags a bit. I’m not sure if I’ll watch this one again, but I’m glad I finally saw it.
Watched: 11/13/2021
Notable Song: Prelude to a Kiss by Deborah Harry
