Heart and Souls
Encyclopedia
Heart and Souls is a 1993 fantasy
/comedy film
about the souls of four deceased people who are trapped on earth and can only be seen by a single living human being who is recruited to help them take care of their unfinished business. The movie was directed by Ron Underwood
and was filmed in San Francisco.
), Julia (Kyra Sedgwick
), Milo (Tom Sizemore
), and Penny (Alfre Woodard
) are presented as passengers on a bus in the same time. The bus driver is focused on a car to his left where a man is touching a woman's exposed leg. He loses control of the bus and crashes off an overpass, killing all four of the characters. Each one had unfinished business in their lives, and instead of going to heaven
, they find themselves as ghosts, tied to the newborn Thomas Reilly, who was born in the vehicle at the moment the four passengers lost their lives.
Only Thomas is able to see them, and they act as his guides and guardian spirits. However, when people show concern over Thomas' "imaginary" friends, they decide to hide themselves from him to avoid trouble. Thomas is devastated. Twenty-five years later, after finally learning that they were supposed to use their internment on Earth to resolve their remaining issues, they make themselves visible to Thomas (Robert Downey, Jr.) once more. By now, he is a cold, distant businessman having problems with his girlfriend Anne (Elisabeth Shue
). Though reluctant at first, he eventually agrees to help each of them fulfill their final task. As they succeed (despite varying levels of difficulty) in tying up their decades-old loose ends, they are individually brought to heaven by the bus driver Hal (his punishment for crashing the bus) in an emotional moment.
Milo, a petty thief, regrets a decision he made to steal valuable stamps, a family heirloom, from a child before he died. He possesses Thomas and steals the stamps back from his former boss, who still has them. He returns the stamps anonymously to their overjoyed owner.
Harrison was a would-be singer who was very talented, but had severe stage fright
. He died shortly after giving up at an audition, unable to perform. After encouragement from Thomas and the others, he finally works up the nerve to sing the National Anthem at a B. B. King
concert when Thomas sneaks on stage, and he is a big hit. Thomas is detained by the police, but he is satisfied that Harrison's final act was a success.
Penny, a single mother, had been spending her time with Thomas trying to discover the fates of her three children after her death. She hears from her old next-door neighbor that her two daughters were adopted and are living happy lives, but can find nothing about her son Billy. In a chance encounter, the policeman whom Thomas has had constant run-ins with sings a song to his baby daughter, the same song that Penny invented to sing to her son. She realizes that this cop is Billy, and possesses Thomas to tell Billy that she loves him. Billy is disoriented and not fully convinced by Thomas's weak cover story, but the message seems to get across. Penny's work is done.
Finally, Julia had been on the way to tell her ex-boyfriend she loved him, and that she had decided to marry him, when the bus crashed. Thomas takes her to the last-known location of the man, trying to outrun the ghost bus which has come for her. She takes control of him when they arrive and writes a letter to give to her fiancée under the cover that he found it. However, when he knocks on the door, the man who lives there reveals that her boyfriend died seven years ago a lonely man worn down by life. Thomas and Julia are stunned at the unfairness of it, until she realizes that coming here was meant to show Thomas that he shouldn't squander his relationship with Anne and makes him promise to go to her. Hal is pleased with this explanation, and Julia and Thomas then get ready to say their good-byes. Julia is wistful because she, like the other ghosts, had helped watch over him as her own child, and as she said to him when he was 7 years old, she simply wished she could give him a big hug.
After hearing her, Hal looks up to the sky, meaning God
, suddenly Julia becomes solid and is able to hug Thomas. The bus driver says 'thank you' to God and takes Julia away. Thomas and Julia wave good-bye to one another. Thomas then meets up with Anne in the gardens and explains how four people he loved very much left his life (meaning Milo, Harrison, Julia, and Penny), which had left him devastated. And goes on to explain that he was afraid to love anyone and then tells her his feelings, they both reconcile and kiss.
Fantasy film
Fantasy films are films with fantastic themes, usually involving magic, supernatural events, make-believe creatures, or exotic fantasy worlds. The genre is considered to be distinct from science fiction film and horror film, although the genres do overlap...
/comedy film
Comedy film
Comedy film is a genre of film in which the main emphasis is on humour. They are designed to elicit laughter from the audience. Comedies are mostly light-hearted dramas and are made to amuse and entertain the audiences...
about the souls of four deceased people who are trapped on earth and can only be seen by a single living human being who is recruited to help them take care of their unfinished business. The movie was directed by Ron Underwood
Ron Underwood
Ronald Brian "Ron" Underwood is an American film director.-Early Life:-Early career :-Mainstream breakthrough :-Filmography:...
and was filmed in San Francisco.
Plot
In 1959, Frank and Eva Reilly are on their way to the hospital, as Eva is in labor with their first child. As they are driving, Harrison (Charles GrodinCharles Grodin
Charles Grodin is an American actor, comedian, author and former cable talk show host. Grodin began his acting career in the 1960s appearing in TV serials including The Virginian. He had a small part as an obstetrician in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby in 1968...
), Julia (Kyra Sedgwick
Kyra Sedgwick
Kyra Minturn Sedgwick is an American actress.Sedgwick is best known for her starring role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on the TNT crime drama The Closer. Sedgwick's role in the series won her a Golden Globe Award in 2007 and an Emmy Award in 2010...
), Milo (Tom Sizemore
Tom Sizemore
Thomas Edward "Tom" Sizemore, Jr. is an American film and television actor and producer. He is known for his roles in films such as Saving Private Ryan, Strange Days, Pearl Harbor, Heat and Black Hawk Down....
), and Penny (Alfre Woodard
Alfre Woodard
Alfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
) are presented as passengers on a bus in the same time. The bus driver is focused on a car to his left where a man is touching a woman's exposed leg. He loses control of the bus and crashes off an overpass, killing all four of the characters. Each one had unfinished business in their lives, and instead of going to heaven
Heaven
Heaven, the Heavens or Seven Heavens, is a common religious cosmological or metaphysical term for the physical or transcendent place from which heavenly beings originate, are enthroned or inhabit...
, they find themselves as ghosts, tied to the newborn Thomas Reilly, who was born in the vehicle at the moment the four passengers lost their lives.
Only Thomas is able to see them, and they act as his guides and guardian spirits. However, when people show concern over Thomas' "imaginary" friends, they decide to hide themselves from him to avoid trouble. Thomas is devastated. Twenty-five years later, after finally learning that they were supposed to use their internment on Earth to resolve their remaining issues, they make themselves visible to Thomas (Robert Downey, Jr.) once more. By now, he is a cold, distant businessman having problems with his girlfriend Anne (Elisabeth Shue
Elisabeth Shue
Elisabeth Judson Shue is an American actress and producer, most famous for her roles in the films The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail, Back to the Future Parts II and III and Leaving Las Vegas, for which she won five acting awards and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden...
). Though reluctant at first, he eventually agrees to help each of them fulfill their final task. As they succeed (despite varying levels of difficulty) in tying up their decades-old loose ends, they are individually brought to heaven by the bus driver Hal (his punishment for crashing the bus) in an emotional moment.
Milo, a petty thief, regrets a decision he made to steal valuable stamps, a family heirloom, from a child before he died. He possesses Thomas and steals the stamps back from his former boss, who still has them. He returns the stamps anonymously to their overjoyed owner.
Harrison was a would-be singer who was very talented, but had severe stage fright
Stage fright
Stage fright or performance anxiety is the anxiety, fear, or persistent phobia which may be aroused in an individual by the requirement to perform in front of an audience, whether actually or potentially . In the context of public speaking, this fear is termed glossophobia, one of the most common...
. He died shortly after giving up at an audition, unable to perform. After encouragement from Thomas and the others, he finally works up the nerve to sing the National Anthem at a B. B. King
B. B. King
Riley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...
concert when Thomas sneaks on stage, and he is a big hit. Thomas is detained by the police, but he is satisfied that Harrison's final act was a success.
Penny, a single mother, had been spending her time with Thomas trying to discover the fates of her three children after her death. She hears from her old next-door neighbor that her two daughters were adopted and are living happy lives, but can find nothing about her son Billy. In a chance encounter, the policeman whom Thomas has had constant run-ins with sings a song to his baby daughter, the same song that Penny invented to sing to her son. She realizes that this cop is Billy, and possesses Thomas to tell Billy that she loves him. Billy is disoriented and not fully convinced by Thomas's weak cover story, but the message seems to get across. Penny's work is done.
Finally, Julia had been on the way to tell her ex-boyfriend she loved him, and that she had decided to marry him, when the bus crashed. Thomas takes her to the last-known location of the man, trying to outrun the ghost bus which has come for her. She takes control of him when they arrive and writes a letter to give to her fiancée under the cover that he found it. However, when he knocks on the door, the man who lives there reveals that her boyfriend died seven years ago a lonely man worn down by life. Thomas and Julia are stunned at the unfairness of it, until she realizes that coming here was meant to show Thomas that he shouldn't squander his relationship with Anne and makes him promise to go to her. Hal is pleased with this explanation, and Julia and Thomas then get ready to say their good-byes. Julia is wistful because she, like the other ghosts, had helped watch over him as her own child, and as she said to him when he was 7 years old, she simply wished she could give him a big hug.
After hearing her, Hal looks up to the sky, meaning God
God
God is the English name given to a singular being in theistic and deistic religions who is either the sole deity in monotheism, or a single deity in polytheism....
, suddenly Julia becomes solid and is able to hug Thomas. The bus driver says 'thank you' to God and takes Julia away. Thomas and Julia wave good-bye to one another. Thomas then meets up with Anne in the gardens and explains how four people he loved very much left his life (meaning Milo, Harrison, Julia, and Penny), which had left him devastated. And goes on to explain that he was afraid to love anyone and then tells her his feelings, they both reconcile and kiss.
Cast
- Robert Downey, Jr. — Thomas Reilly
- Charles GrodinCharles GrodinCharles Grodin is an American actor, comedian, author and former cable talk show host. Grodin began his acting career in the 1960s appearing in TV serials including The Virginian. He had a small part as an obstetrician in Roman Polanski's Rosemary's Baby in 1968...
— Harrison Winslow - Alfre WoodardAlfre WoodardAlfre Ette Woodard is an American film, stage, and television actress. She has been nominated once for an Academy Award and Grammy Awards, 17 times for Emmy Awards , and has also won a Golden Globe and three Screen Actors Guild Awards.She is known for her role in films such as Cross Creek, Miss...
— Penny Washington - Kyra SedgwickKyra SedgwickKyra Minturn Sedgwick is an American actress.Sedgwick is best known for her starring role as Deputy Chief Brenda Leigh Johnson on the TNT crime drama The Closer. Sedgwick's role in the series won her a Golden Globe Award in 2007 and an Emmy Award in 2010...
— Julia - Tom SizemoreTom SizemoreThomas Edward "Tom" Sizemore, Jr. is an American film and television actor and producer. He is known for his roles in films such as Saving Private Ryan, Strange Days, Pearl Harbor, Heat and Black Hawk Down....
— Milo Peck - David PaymerDavid PaymerDavid Paymer is an American actor and television director, seen in such films as Quiz Show, Searching for Bobby Fischer, City Slickers, Crazy People, State and Main, Payback, Get Shorty, Carpool, The American President, Ocean's Thirteen, and Drag Me to Hell...
— Hal the Bus Driver - Elisabeth ShueElisabeth ShueElisabeth Judson Shue is an American actress and producer, most famous for her roles in the films The Karate Kid, Adventures in Babysitting, Cocktail, Back to the Future Parts II and III and Leaving Las Vegas, for which she won five acting awards and was nominated for an Academy Award, a Golden...
— Anne - Bill Calvert — Frank Reilly
- Lisa LucasLisa LucasLisa Lucas is a former child actress, best known for her role as "Addie Mills" in the Emmy-winning Christmas television special, The House Without a Christmas Tree. It first aired on CBS-TV in December 1972, spawned three holiday-based sequels from 1973–1976 with the same cast, and was a...
— Eva Reilly - Eric LloydEric LloydEric Lloyd is an American actor. Lloyd is best known for work as a child actor between 1992 and 2003, in such roles as Charlie Calvin in The Santa Clause film trilogy, and as "Little John" Warner in the NBC television series Jesse.-Background:Lloyd was born in Glendale, California, the son of...
- Thomas Reilly (age 7) - Richard PortnowRichard PortnowRichard Portnow is an American actor known for such films and television shows as Barton Fink, Se7en, Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai, The Spirit, Law Abiding Citizen, Private Parts, Fallen Arches, Double Down, Spring Break '83, The Sopranos, Hannah Montana and Boston Legal.-Life and career:A...
- Max Marco - B. B. KingB. B. KingRiley B. King , known by the stage name B.B. King, is an American blues guitarist and singer-songwriter.Rolling Stone magazine ranked him at No.3 on its list of the 100 greatest guitarists of all time. According to Edward M...
- Himself - Wren T. BrownWren T. BrownWren Troy Brown is an American film, theater, and television actor.A fourth generation Angeleno, Mr. Brown is also a fourth generation theatrical. He is in his third decade as an actor, producer, and director.-Biography:...
- Sgt. Wm. Barclay - Kurtwood SmithKurtwood SmithKurtwood Larson Smith is an American television and film actor. He is best known for playing Clarence Boddicker in RoboCop and stern parental characters , and for his appearances in the genre of science fiction...
- Patterson (uncredited) - Chloe WebbChloe WebbChloe Webb is an American actress.Webb was born in Greenwich Village, Manhattan, New York. Her New York theater debut was in the original cast of the long-running musical satire Forbidden Broadway...
- Patient in Psychiatric Ward (uncredited)