Prelude to a Kiss: A switch from the ordinary romance

If you were the Goddess of Romance, and wanted to create a film with a loving message in it for everyone - young, old, families, singles, men, women, widows - Prelude to a Kiss is the movie you'd make. You'd add mystery, comedy, tragedy, dramatic prose and plenty of opportunities to bring out the tissue box. Of course, there would be several lessons learned, many warm embraces, and a wedding.

For director Norman René, this movie represented his first dip in the pool of commercial filmmaking. On the coattails of their 1990 Sundance Film Festival award-winner, AIDS drama Longtime Companion, René again partnered with New York City playwright Craig Lucas. The theatrical version of Prelude to a Kiss had been playing in New York City and traveling around the country for almost two years. They signed Alec Baldwin and Sydney Walker to reprise the starring roles they were currently performing in the play, and added some heavy-hitters such as Meg Ryan, Kathy Bates, Patty Duke Astin and Ned Beatty.

The film opens as a young and successful publishing agent, Peter Hoskins (Baldwin), meets an effervescent bartender, Rita Boyle (Ryan), at a friend's party. We are treated to their awkward courtship dance as they discover each other's wonders and foibles. They fall in love with each other, and we fall in love with them. Peter proposes, Rita accepts, and even though we've only known them for half of an hour, we feel like guests at a wedding for two people we've been acquainted with for years.

During the courtship of Peter and Rita, we are introduced to Julius Blier (Walker). Julius is a widower on the downhill side of his seventh decade. He lives with his daughter, Leah (Bates) and her husband Jerry (Richard Riehle) in a small apartment in which he sits all day, staring at the walls. Circumstance eventually guides him to Peter and Rita's wedding, and he looks on with longing in his eyes. As the couple leaves for their Jamaican honeymoon, Julius impulsively asks to kiss the bride - and Rita agrees - sealing her fate for the rest of the movie.

The magical kiss transforms Rita and Julius - figuratively as well as literally. Rita's young, bubbly spirit enters Julius' old, worn out body...and the mind of tired and depressed Julius floats easily into Rita's lithe figure. While each is trying to make sense of the events surrounding that one kiss, Peter risks Rita - now Julius - off to Jamaica for what he expects to be the beginning of his life with his new bride.

Needless to say, the Jamaican honeymoon is a disaster, and the couple return home earlier than expected. After spending several days in a tropical paradise with the personality of Julius in Rita's body, Peter is already suspecting that something is amiss. Julius is anxious to start living the live of a young person, but is not interesting in making Peter part of that live - so "Rita" returns home to her parents. Meanwhile, Rita - in Julius' body - has been spending time living with Leah and Jerry, awaiting the return of her husband and the man who took her body. Rita confronts Peter, he embraces the impossible idea of body switching, and the loving couple is reunited. The first item on their agenda - to get Rita and Julius back in their own bodies.

Sydney Walker, a long-time veteran of stage and television, reprises his role as Julius with the feeling of exhaustion that comes with old age and giving up on life. When he transforms into Rita, we see an amazing transformation in not only his mannerisms and speech patterns, but in his eyes as well - they actually become younger. Meg Ryan shows Rita's transformation to Julius in a more subtle manner - she moves more awkwardly, sits and stand with a more manly pose, and treats the experience with genuine wonder. As Peter, Alec Baldwin gives an excellent performance as a man tied between his disbelief of the entire situation and his love for Rita. Although repulsed by the outer lining, he accepts this flaw because of his deep adoration of who Rita is on the inside.

Prelude to a Kiss was, unfortunately, Norman René's only true commercial success. His follow-up project, in which he also teamed up with Craig Lucas, was an uneven film released in 195: Reckless. In 1996, René died of AIDS at the age of 45. Lucas never worked on another film, instead going back to his first love - the theater. With Prelude to a Kiss, René left a lasting legacy to lovers everywhere - a film about new love, and true love.