Roger Cobb is an attorney who is dissatisfied with his job and has dreams of becoming a jazz guitarist. Edwina Cutwater is an eccentric, bedridden millionaire who has employed Roger’s law firm to handle her estate planning after her death. Roger discovers that Edwina has hired Prahka Lasa, a mystic, to aid in transferring her soul to the body of a much younger woman named Terry so that she may continue to live on.
Roger’s job is to change Edwina’s will so that Terry, soon to be Edwina, will inherit everything after Edwina’s death. Obviously, Roger finds this plan to be insane, and Edwina promptly fires him. But due to some shenanigans, Edwina’s soul is inadvertently transferred into Roger’s body instead of Terry’s, and with his demanding client in his head – and body – Roger must track down Prahka and find a way to reverse the mistake.
Directed by Carl Reiner, All of Me is an entertaining body-swamp comedy thanks to its leads, Steve Martin and Lily Tomlin. I had never heard of this movie before finding it on Amazon Prime, but I’m happy I gave it a watch! It’s a ridiculous premise, but a fun one executed pretty brilliantly by the entire cast.
Once Edwina is transferred into Roger’s body, it’s pretty much Martin’s time to shine. His physical comedy is genuinely unmatched. Watching two halves of his body war for dominance is a treat and provides most of the comedy’s laugh-out-loud moments. Edwina is insufferable initially, but it’s impossible to hate her, thanks to Tomlin’s hilarious performance. As she’s bedridden for the beginning of the movie and then “living” in Martin’s body for the rest, Tomlin has to rely on verbal comedy, and she indeed excels at that. Roger and Edwina warm up to one another, but their verbal sparring is as effectively funny as Martin’s spastic performance.
Most importantly, Martin and Tomlin have the right kind of on-screen chemistry to buy into the progression of their relationship from hatred to annoyance to friendship to love.
I really enjoyed All of Me, but then again, I’ve become a rather big fan of Steve Martin over the past year with how many of his movies I’ve been watching (plus, I love Only Murders in the Building). I read that from 2012-2015, Dreamworks had been developing a remake of the film, but I haven’t been able to find any more information about it since then… which… is probably a good thing. All of Me has a lot of laughs and somehow makes its absurdist premise almost believable. All of Me is worth a watch for Martin and Tomlin, as I’m not sure the premise would have worked so well with anyone else.