I have been enamored by this film since I was a child like many other fans caught the film one night on HBO. I have always considered myself a closet romantic and this film touched me on a level I didn't know existed. At the time I had no girlfriend and was very 15 years old but always considered my many to be an old soul. The characters were simple and pure, innocent in a word and I believe that is what perfect love is. I've always believed in love at first sight and experienced it later on in life and I never forgot this movie. I actually sought it out in the nineties before video stores ride themselves of VHS. I copied it and recently watched it with my girlfriend and she cried as Annie and Elmo bounced around unknowingly searching for each other. I was fortunate enough to get the soundtrack on tape at an old music store and created mp3's from it. We plan on using much of the music during our wedding.. The love Mike/Elmo and Annie/Ally find is the kind I want to carry me through the rest of my life and beyond.. I would like to own the DVD I hear there is an alternate ending.. I'm curious to see it..

The most amazing thing about this movie isn't how perfect, enlightening, romantic, positive and fulfilling it is, but rather how it has managed to stay out of the central focus of the mainstream movie kind lovers. Obviously you have to have a certain open mind to fully enjoy it, but if you do,and if you let yourself believe that things may be done and organized in a certain way and that our acts can and do have a direct impact on whatever happens to us and to those around us, then this movie will gently, softly and almost mystically put the pieces of the puzzle together for you. There is for each one of us a special someone and at the risk of having this turn into a weapon in cynical peoples' minds, this is the kind of movies which lets you know that you shouldn't give up, and that you should keep the fire alive. I have used this movie for the longest time to pick me up from hard times and gather myself ton continue ahead. I am positive it can do the same to you... Enjoy it!

Alan Rudolph's MADE IN HEAVEN is a pleasant, sweet-natured romantic comedy with a twist; the lovers meet in Heaven, after our hero (Timothy Hutton) dies, rescuing a family from a car that plunges into a river. It may seem familiar territory to viewers of Robin Williams' drama, WHAT DREAMS MAY COME, in it's depiction of the afterlife and reincarnation, and the Albert Brooks' fantasy, DEFENDING YOUR LIFE, which also involves a romance in Heaven (in Brooks' case, with Meryl Streep). Without the budget of the Williams' film (which won an Oscar for it's visual effects), or Brooks' occasionally caustic humor about Divine Judgment, MADE IN HEAVEN is a simpler tale, weaving in a theme of predestination between lovers 'meant' to be together, which makes it a perfect 'date' movie.Hutton, dealing with being dead and in 'Paradise', appreciates the support of his Aunt Lisa (Maureen Stapleton), a long-dead budding painter in a heavenly Paris, but finds that he is lonely, and feels out of place. Then he meets heavenly guide Annie (Kelly McGillis), a new 'soul', who had never 'lived' on earth before, and the pair soon fall for each other, filling both his need for love and companionship, and her's, for an understanding of life, and passion. They marry, after being granted permission by 'The Boss', Emmett (an unbilled Debra Winger, who plays the male role very convincingly!)Everything seems perfectly heavenly...until Anne's number is called to be born on Earth. Despite Hutton's pleas that the pair were 'meant' to be together, Anne's destiny cannot be changed...but he does convince Emmett to allow him to be 'reborn' on Earth, insisting that the pair's love would bring them together. With the understanding that his new life may not return him to Heaven, Emmett grants him 30 years to connect with Annie...or else.In true soap opera fashion, the pair live wildly different lives, and have unfulfilling relationships with other partners, while each experiences flashbacks of the true love they had experienced in Heaven. Time is running out, however, and Hutton's 30th birthday is rapidly approaching, without meeting his soulmate... A modest film, with a great supporting cast (including Tim Daly, Don Murray, Mare Winningham, and Amanda Plummer), MADE IN HEAVEN's theme, that Love truly DOES conquer all, is irresistible.Grab YOUR soulmate, and enjoy it!

Something like this needs to be whimsical, and this is very heavy-handed. It starts out flat stays that way. I was optimistic in spite of the negative reviews because of the cast, but the cast isn't at fault. The look and tone of the movie are uniformly depressing, and the story is not at all engaging. I was very disappointed by this movie...