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Rich bitch Edwina Cutwater (Tomlin) is hoping to gain a few more years on earth and thwart an early death by having her soul transferred into the body of her young assistant. But something goes wrong and her soul ends up in the body of Roger (Martin).

Roger is now literally a woman in a man's body and Edwina wants out as much as Roger wants her out.

While trying to undo the process and get Edwina's soul in the proper place, Roger and Edwina get to know each other and Edwina finds a reluctant confessor as she begins to see how she wasted her life and gave up so much joy by being such a petty bitch.

Director Carl Reiner, who was also responsible for the seminal Martin film, THE JERK, lovingly toys with the then (this being 1984) subversive topic of gender and sexuality by creating a humorous pretense to approach the subject with a mainstream audience. I suppose it was the only way someone like Lily Tomlin could begin to approach America with her own homosexuality to layer heterosexuality on top of a potentially homosexual situation to show the connection. Roger wanting a man would be deviant, but since there is actually a woman inside of him, well, then it's just funny and little bit embarrassing.

Deconstructivists take note: I concede that suggesting homosexuality is like having an inverted gender is taking us back to the dark ages but when did your suburban neighbors ever see two men in a physical embrace in the mid 80's? It was a tiny motion, but a motion nonetheless. So no arguments from the peanut gallery.

Before Jim Carrey, we had Steve Martin's brand of physical humor. He makes you believe he's possessed. Tomlin, as usual, plays the coolly detached onlooker with the outsider's wisdom but this time with a dose of royal bitchiness that makes her just fun to watch.

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originally posted: 12/10/99 14:36:27
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