Alice

A sweet little slice of magical realism here. Mia Farrow is one of those useless rich women who spend their days shopping, lunching with other useless women, and visiting beauty spas. The only significant thing she does is pick up her two children, who are naturally being raised by a nanny, from their snooty school. Here she meets jazz musician Joe Mantegna, and they fall for each other. But she feels too guilty to do anything about it.

Suffering from a (probably psychosomatic) backache, she visits the mysterious Dr. Yang (the great Keye Luke, in his last role). Here is where the magic comes in. Yang prescribes a series of herbal remedies that do wonderful things to her. The first one loosens up her libido, but she chickens out when the drug wears off. Then it gets really fun. She turns invisible with one potion, then can fly with the ghost of her first lover.

The final potion comes after she has used the invisibility herb to discover hubby William Hurt’s infidelity by appearing in his office while he’s schtupping his girlfriend. She tells him it’s over … but then Joe tells her he had discovered strong feelings for his ex-wife. But Dr. Yang has a love potion. She can give it to only one of the men, so she has to decide. So, in a truly hilarious scene, someone mistakenly puts the potion in the eggnog at a party, and all the men there become utterly enthralled with her, a truly scary thing. I won’t reveal the ending, but it is as sweet and satisfying as all the rest of the film. Lee and I just really, really loved this one.