Chances Are

Chances Are
By Peter John Gardner

Ah, incest. What better subject to tie a family friendly romantic comedy around? If the threat of incest can produce laughs in Back to the Future, why not in a rom-com? It's one of those things that is funny when it happens in the movies but not when it occurs in real life, kind of like stepping in dog shit or worse yet, having the dog actually shit on you.

Chances Are is actually an enjoyable movie with no dog shit. Shooter McGavin (I don't know what the guy's real name is, and I don't care to find out. He'll always be Shooter McGavin to me) plays a lawyer named Louie Jeffries. Louie is married to Corinne (Cybil Shephard). On their first anniversary, Louie gets hit by a car and dies.

How come every film depiction of Heaven makes it out to be this boring place in the clouds where everyone is white and just stand around talking? Why is there always a long line to get in? I don't want to spend my life a good person just to stand around and talk with white people in the clouds for eternity. I'd rather go to Hell. At least they play Slayer there.

Upon his arrival to Heaven, Louie rushes to the reincarnation lane and demands to return to Earth post haste. He's got a family and an important court case to attend to. Of course being reincarnated as a completely different infant at that very moment is the logical thing to do. Whatever. I'll buy it. Skip ahead a few years and we meet Louie's reincarnation Alex Finch (Downey) who is a Yale student about to graduate. While working in the library, he meets a girl named Miranda who he falls in love with.

Miranda's mother is Corinne, Finch's previous incarnation's wife. Since Shooter McGavin wasn't injected with memory wiping serum in Heaven, all of the memories of his previous life come flooding back into his head. He wants his girlfriend's/daughter's mom which is actually is wife. Thus, a sick love triangle ensues. Complicating matters is family friend Louie Philip who is trying to get into Corinne's pants. Trust me, it makes sense in the movie.

Skip to the end, and Finch eventually gets his previous memory wiped and ends up with Miranda. Corinne, knowing at this point that Finch is actually Louie, is cool with it. Seriously. Corinne doesn't mind that her dead husband, even though his memory has been wiped, is now having sex with their daughter. Ok, different body and memory erased, BUT STILL! That doesn't disturb her at all? If gender roles were reversed and I was in Corinne's position, I don't think I'd be ok with my son banging a body once inhabited by my now deceased wife. This is the happiest ending to a movie I've seen that involves incest. Incestually ever after.