Made in Heaven (1987)

Director:

Alan Rudolph

Writers:

Bruce A. Evans (written by)
Raynold Gideon (written by)

Release Date:

6 November 1987 (USA)

Genre:

Fantasy

Tagline:

12,000 babies will be born in the United States today. Two will already have fallen in love.

Plot:

After being bumped by his girlfriend, a boy runs away to California. But he ends up in heaven because he dies after trying to help a family from drowning in a river. In heaven he'll meet a beautiful girl, who has never reincarnated before.

Plot Keywords:

Female Nudity | Angel | Heaven | Fairy Tale | Love

Cast

Timothy Hutton	...	Mike Shea / Elmo Barnett
Kelly McGillis	...	Annie Packert / Ally Chandler
Maureen Stapleton	...	Aunt Lisa
Ann Wedgeworth	...	Annette Shea
James Gammon	...	Steve Shea
Mare Winningham	...	Brenda Carlucci
Don Murray	...	Ben Chandler
Tim Daly	...	Tom Donnelly (as Timothy Daly)
David Rasche	...	Donald Sumner
Amanda Plummer	...	Wiley Foxx
Willard E. Pugh	...	Guy Blanchard / Brian Dalton (as Willard Pugh)
Vyto Ruginis	...	Lyman McCray
Neil Young	...	Truck driver
Tom Petty	...	Stanky
Ric Ocasek	...	Shark

Runtime:

Brazil:102 min | USA:103 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White | Color

Sound Mix:

Dolby

Certification:

Iceland:L | Finland:K-10 | USA:PG | West Germany:6 | Argentina:13 | Canada:PG

Filming Locations:

Georgia, USA

Company:

Lorimar Film Entertainment

Trivia:

Cameo: [Debra Winger]Emmert, the apparently male entity who "runs things" in heaven.

Goofs:

Continuity: As Mike is driving around town, drinking and smoking, he tosses his cigarette out of the window just before he swerves and spins to avoid a car coming straight towards him. In the next shot, he is holding the same cigarette.

Quotes:

Emmett: I was in love too. My wife wanted to spend the rest of our lives together. She wanted to get married, we did. She wanted to have kids, we did. She wanted to spend the rest of our lives together and did in each other arms, we did. We can't.

Movie Connections:

Features Notorious (1946)

Soundtrack:

I Am A Child

Love is yet another four-letter word.

Love is absurd. Heaven is absurd. A movie about love and heaven may also be absurd or render the absurdity of love and heaven as palpable, revealing and refreshing. This movie truncates two lifetimes into two hours and leaves you with the sense that, for at least some of us, love is all that more powerful when we allow for the supernatural, the absurd components, to mix with biology. The fascinating consideration is that the woman was made (four-letter word for conceived) in Heaven and only subsequently was earth-bound. The existentialism is indeed fascinating in spite of the temporal truncation. As the poet Michael Biscardi has written, "There are some truths that serve where facts do not."