MOVIE REVIEWS : ‘Kiss’: A Meditation on Vagaries of Love

If you’ve ever been in love, you know the feeling. No, not that feeling, the other one, the chilling thought that waits for the unwary at odd times and unexpected situations. A word is spoken, a look exchanged, and you suddenly think, “Who is this, anyway? And what the hell happened to the person I fell in love with?”

Both as a play and now on film, “Prelude to a Kiss” takes that feeling to a nervy fantasy extreme, transforming a quirk of human nature into a delicate romantic fable. Somehow combining “Love Story” with elements of “The Exorcist,” “Prelude” (selected theaters) ends up a sweet meditation on the vagaries of love, what it’s based on, what it can withstand, what it all finally means.

Though it’s more sentimental than profound, and (especially in the film version) more gentle than provocative, “Prelude” is still something out of the ordinary, and its success is due to the fact that the heart of its creative team, screenwriter Craig Lucas and director Norman Rene, moved intact to the film from the play, as did co-star Alec Baldwin. With the addition of actress Meg Ryan, “Prelude” had a team that not only understood the material but believed in it enough to put it across.

When we first meet Peter Hoskins (Baldwin) and Rita Boyle (Ryan), there is no indication that their story will be anything out of the ordinary. He is spied first, ruminating in voice-over on a Chicago rooftop about how much he loves the sign on roller coasters that reads, “Ride at your own risk,” a kind of warning that life has more in store for you than you might at first imagine.

This bit of philosophizing behind him, Peter re-enters the party he has temporarily abandoned and immediately spies Rita dancing with noticeable abandon. Peter, as his prominent glasses attest, is a sober sort, employed by a firm that puts scientific documents on microfiche, while Rita, her dancing style notwithstanding, turns out to be more tentative and uncertain than wild, a one-time socialist who now tends bar and hasn’t had a good night’s sleep since she was 14.

Since a good part of the PG-13 “Prelude to a Kiss” involves watching this relationship develop along traditional paths (he visits her at the bar, for instance, and discovers they both like eating spaetzle and talking about thM. Thomas novel “The White Hotel”), it is essential that the actors share enough chemistry on screen to interest us in their unsurprising actions.

Fortunately, Baldwin (who had the advantage of playing Peter on stage in New York) and Ryan form an extremely likable couple, believable both in their initial unsureness and in how they gradually hook onto each other’s loose ends. And because they manage to be glamorous without seeming to be, watching them fall in love is no trouble at all.

After a pro forma meeting with her parents (played with a nice comic edge by Ned Beatty and Patty Duke), Peter and Rita cap their storybook courtship with a very traditional wedding. And that’s where things start to go a little strange.

For standing far to the back of the throng, looking pale and ill-at-ease as Banquo’s ghost, is an old and ill man (Sydney Walker). No one knows how he got there, he belongs to no one at all, and he is being asked not so politely to leave when he makes a final request. Can he just kiss the bride? Rita graciously acquiesces, and, just like in the fairy tales this story so adroitly plays off of, that one kiss changes everything.

Dealing with the changes that random moment makes in Peter and Rita’s relationship is what “Prelude to a Kiss” is all about, and in the hands of director Norman Rene, who directed the premiere of “Prelude” at the South Coast Rep and saw to it that the film’s principals could rehearse for three weeks before shooting, it is all handled with the most respect and discretion imaginable.

Those who remember Rene’s big-screen directorial debut with “Longtime Companion” (also written by Craig Lucas) know how discreet he can be. While qualities like fastidiousness and unobtrusiveness are not always wanted in a director, and rarely delivered even when called for, a delicate conception like “Prelude’s” needs this kind of care if it is to work at all, and Rene’s unhurried pace, which seems something of an affectation at the film’s beginning, pays off by the close.

Though playwright Lucas’ presence as screenwriter has ensured that the core of “Prelude” remains intact, there are changes from the stage version. Aside from the switch of locales from New York to Chicago (dictated by a labor dispute) and the inevitable opening up of the play, taking us to Jamaica for the couple’s honeymoon, for instance, the major change from the Manhattan production is symbolized by the casting of Sydney Walker as the old man.

Walker, the doctor who gave Ali MacGraw the bad news in “Love Story,” is an elfin 71-year-old who played the role during “Prelude’s” production at the Berkeley Rep. His, however, is a very affectionate performance, a little like a geriatric E.T., and that contrasts considerably with the more irascible old man Barnard Hughes played on Broadway.

Though this choice is a perfectly defensible one, and has resulted in a film with a broader appeal, it underlines that the work, perhaps inevitably, seemed tougher on stage, more connected to its sub rosa themes of men loving men in the time of AIDS than is now apparent. Still, with its perspectives on love, aging and solitude, “Prelude to a Kiss” still offers a good deal more than the usual smiles of a summer’s day.

‘Prelude to a Kiss’

Alec Baldwin:Peter Hoskins

Meg Ryan: Rita Boyle

Kathy Bates: Leah Blier

Ned Beatty: Dr. Boyle

Patty Duke: Mrs. Boyle

Sydney Walker: Old Man

A Gruskoff/Levy Co. production, released by 20th Century Fox. Director Norman Rene. Producers Michael Gruskoff, Michael I. Levy. Executive producer Jennifer Ogden. Screenplay Craig Lucas, based on his play. Cinematographer Stefan Czapsky. Editor Stephen A. Rotter. Costumes Walker Hicklin. Music Howard Shore. Production design Andrew Jackness. Art director W. Steven Graham. Set decorator Cindy Carr. Running time: 1 hour, 50 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13.