All of Me

What’s the Story?

Because she can't take it with her, millionaire Edwina Cutwater (Lily Tomlin) is coming back for it. Having willed her entire fortune to lovely Terry (Victoria Tennant), the stable man's daughter, whose body her soul is going to be transplanted into, the ailing spinster dies happy. A slip-up occurs, though, and Edwina ends up controlling the right side of unsuspecting lawyer Roger Cobb's (Steve Martin) body. The situation loses Cobb his girlfriend, his job, and his sunglasses, but wouldn't you know it? Existing together in such close quarters, the two start to grow on each other like moss on a tree trunk. Together they work out a plan to get Terry's soul out of her body so Edwina can claim it and give Cobb back what he discovers he's been missing all along: his individuality.

Is It Any Good?

Fans of Steve Martin and slapstick director Carl Reiner -- who teamed up on The Jerk and Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid -- know what they're in for with ALL OF ME: fake orgasms, pee-pee jokes, and a nutty guru who flushes the toilet every time the phone rings. The direction here lacks panache, the music is awful, and Victoria Tennant -- Steve Martin's future ex-wife -- has as much screen presence as a cardboard cutout of Victoria Tennant, but that's all part of the fun. The movie's lame, but it makes you laugh in the way that only lame movies can.

Steve Martin, whose comic genius is sometimes muffled by outrageously bad material (My Blue Heaven, anyone?), does a commendable job of looking like a puppet controlled by two separate string-pullers. The gag wears thin after a while, and the movie lapses at times, but the characters -- even Lily Tomlin's -- endear themselves to you after a while, and the plot has just enough complexity to it to keep it interesting. So sit back, put your feet up, and allow yourself the guilty pleasure of laughing. Or if you're not a lover of the screwball comedy genre, watch it with a couple of kids between the ages of 13 and 16; they'll supply the laugh track.