Line #51 Film/DeadAgain


1	[[quoteright:305:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/dead_again_1991.jpeg]]
2	[[caption-width-right:305:[[CoversAlwaysLie It's not actually a horror film]].]]
3
4	->'''Carlisle:''' There's a lot more people on this planet who believe in past lives than don't.
5
6	''Dead Again'' is a 1991 film directed by Creator/KennethBranagh, who stars in it along with Creator/EmmaThompson, Creator/DerekJacobi, Creator/AndyGarcia, and Creator/HannaSchygulla.
7
8	Los Angeles private detective [[MeaningfulName Mike Church]] (Branagh) is guilted by the priest who raised him into taking the case of an unidentified woman he ends up calling Grace (Thompson). She's amnesiac and suffers from trauma-induced muteness, broken by nightmares in which she can only cry out "somebody help me!" and the [[ArcWords word "Disher!"]]. The fact that she turned up at a particular convent indicates that Grace has some connection to the house, which previously belonged to a famous German composer named Roman Strauss.
9
10	With a little help from a disgraced psychiatrist (Creator/RobinWilliams), Mike and Grace seek out the assistance of a hypnotist, in order to see if hypnosis will bring back her ability to speak in the daytime. When her voice returns in the course of the therapy, the hypnotist decides to try past life regression on both Grace and Mike. Grace's past life reveals a romance between Roman and a woman named Margaret -- and their lives in California as chronicled by a tabloid journalist. As the pieces begin to fall into place, Grace fears that Mike is the reincarnation of the man who killed her in a previous life. The truth is a little stranger than that.
11
12	----
13	!!This film provides examples of:
14
15	* AndThisIsFor: [[spoiler:The young Franklyn gives this speech as he's stabbing Margaret to death with the scissors.]]
16	* ArcWords: "These are for you."
17	* BedlamHouse: The hospital where Mike tries to fob off Grace. It's strictly for women, but the place is full of extreme insanity cases and the staff is clearly either apathetic or overburdened. Mike fancies himself a tough guy detective who doesn't want to be burdened with a woman, but he can't bring himself to leave Grace in a place like this. So he takes her back to his apartment.
18	* BetterManhandleTheMurderWeapon: [[spoiler:Roman, when he finds Margaret's body, thereby getting the fingerprints on the murder weapon that contribute to him being convicted of the murder.]]
19	* BilingualBonus: A box that appears at a key moment in the movie has Japanese writing on the lid, which according to the DVD commentary is a translation of the movie's arc words: "These are for you."
20	* BrainBleach: Mike's reaction when Pete tells Grace the story of the crime scene that caused him to pass out and suffer temporary amnesia; a man who killed off his whole family and then cut off his own arms.
21	-->'''Mike:''' Pete! \
22	'''Pete:''' Had to dial 911 with his nose. \
23	'''Mike:''' '''Pete!''' \
24	'''Pete:''' [[DefensiveWhat What?!]] \
25	'''Mike:''' [[SarcasmMode I just know there's a point to all this.]] \
26	'''Pete:''' It's coming!
27	* TheCameo: Creator/RobinWilliams has three brief scenes as disgraced psychiatrist Cozy Carlisle.
28	* CassandraTruth: [[spoiler: Mike's "I'm not Roman!"]]
29	* CatapultNightmare: Grace, in her first scene.
30	* ChekhovsGun: The anklet Roman gives to Margaret as a wedding present. [[spoiler:Inga later gives it to Mike, and when Grace/Amanda sees he has it, after shooting him - see MyGodWhatHaveIDone below - she realizes he's not out to kill her]].
31	* ComedicSociopathy: Dr. Carlisle is a burnt-out perpetually grumpy man who says some heinous things but Robin William's quick and dry delivery leads to a lot of humor. Mike is shocked at Carlisle's bluntness in [[spoiler:telling him to kill Grace]], but Carlisle just shrugs it off as friendly advice.
32	* CreatorCameo: Patrick Doyle, the composer who has scored most of Kenneth Branagh's movies, appears in the flashbacks as a party guest, and in the present day as an LAPD cop escorting a prisoner in the asylum elevator.
33	* CutPhoneLines: At the climax of the movie, Grace discovers that her phone is dead and suspects the phone line has been sabotaged to prevent her calling for help. It's not established whether that's actually the case; it's also suggested that it might just have been an unfortunately timed consequence of the bad weather.
34	* DreamIntro: The first scene appears to be an ordinary prologue, then becomes increasingly surreal and nightmarish before cutting to Grace catapulting awake in the present day.
35	* DramaticUnmask: One of Grace's hypnotic-regression flashbacks ends with Roman entering the room in the costume he wore to the masquerade ball, then removing the mask to reveal not Roman's face but Mike's. This marks the first time the characters become aware that Mike's past self was present in Grace's past life.
36	* DrugsAreBad: Gray Baker is still alive in Mike's time, and dying of throat cancer from the smoking habit he had [[SmokingIsCool during his reporter days]]. And yet, he's still so addicted that despite having a surgical hole in his throat, he begs Mike for a cigarette and smokes it through his trachea tube. This inspires a horrified Mike to successfully quit smoking.
37	* DumbStruck: Grace, until her first hypnotherapy session (in the DVDCommentary, the writers confess that this was added in a later draft when they realized that all her lines up until that point were just variations on "Sorry, I don't remember".)
38	* EasyAmnesia:
39	** Well, not entirely easy, but Grace is the amnesiac linchpin of the whole movie.
40	** Also, in the story Pete tells Grace about the grisly murder scene he witnessed. He says he passed out upon viewing it, and when he woke up, he couldn't remember who he was. He got better, though.
41	* EmergingFromTheShadows: The first time we see Roman's face.
42	* FallenOnHardTimesJob: Creator/RobinWilliams plays a former therapist who lost his license due to sleeping with patients, and now works in a grocery store.
43	* FilmNoir: [[PlayingWithATrope Plays with]] quite a few of the conventions--Mike is a PrivateDetective, in Los Angeles, drawn into a case involving a woman with a mysterious past. Bonus points for the past actually taking place in TheForties...and [[DeliberatelyMonochrome being shown in black and white.]] The very first scene in particular, with Roman on death row and Gray questioning him, practically screams noir.
44	* FlashBack: More past life regression through hypnosis, but you get the idea.
45	* FlashbackNightmare: Grace's nightmare at the beginning of the movie is a flashback to an event from her previous life.
46	* GoodSmokingEvilSmoking:
47	** Time-appropriate in the Roman and Margaret time frame: everyone smoked during that time.
48	** Mike, the private eye, was pretty much required by the genre to smoke. The RunningGag of the film is that he's trying to quit.
49	** And of course Gray Baker shows how bad an idea it can be, with a nauseating close-up of him smoking through his stoma.
50	* GoryDiscretionShot: When we finally see the murder of Margaret, it's as a shadow against the curtain of her bed, which is joined by a splash of blood.
51	* HappyRain: Roman and Margaret are caught in the rain in the past, which leads to them making love on the sofa ("We'll ruin this couch!" "I'll buy another one!"), while in the present, Mike and Grace's rooftop dinner is spoiled by a sudden downpour that also ends with them in bed together.
52	* HypnoFool: Averted. Mr. Madsen gets people to regress to past lives, but there's no Svengali-like command, or making people act like chickens. Though he wouldn't mind if you found him the odd bit of antique furniture while regressing.
53	* IfICantHaveYou: A variation; [[spoiler:Frankie apparently feels if his mother can't have Roman, neither can Margaret, which is why he kills her]].
54	* ImpaledWithExtremePrejudice: In the final showdown, the villain ends up run through with [[spoiler:one of Grace's scissor-nightmare sculptures]].
55	* ImposterForgotOneDetail: [[spoiler:The fake fiancé who shows up to take Grace off Mike's hands supports his claim by bringing the matching glove to the one Grace had when she was found. Mike realizes just in time that it matches ''too well'' -- they're both for the same hand.]]
56	* InertialImpalement: In the final showdown, the villain charges at Mike and Grace, only to be impaled [[spoiler:on, ironically, one of Grace's scissor-nightmare sculptures]].
57	* InstitutionalApparel:
58	** On death row, Roman wears a jumpsuit with his prisoner number on it.
59	** The scene at the mental hospital has people in scrubs, straitjackets or both on top of normal clothing or pajamas.
60	* KarmicDeath: [[spoiler:Frankie stabs Margaret to death with a pair of scissors, and Mike, who's the reincarnation of Margaret, kills the grown-up Frankie with one of Grace's scissor sculptures]].
61	* LetMeGetThisStraight: Carlisle has this reaction when Mike explains to him [[spoiler: that he was Margaret Strauss, and Grace was Roman Strauss]].
62	* LifeIsntFair
63	-->'''Cozy Carlisle:''' Hey, thumbdick, I was a damn good shrink. Sixteen and a half years I worked with a lot of people through a lot of shit. OK, I slept with a patient or two. It's not like I didn't care about them. \
64	'''Mike Church:''' Sure. \
65	'''Carlisle:''' I loved being a doctor. I used to not charge half my patients. Then the fucking state comes along, they send in some bitch undercover, and I'm fucked. Ain't fair, is it?
66	* MamaBear: Inverted. Inga protected Frankie for more than 30 years, but he did not display his gratitude appropriately.
67	* MeaningfulEcho: The first time Madsen hypnotises Grace, she involuntarily shouts, "Somebody help me!" Near the end of the film, her past self shouts the same thing on the night of the murder. [[spoiler:The audience is set up to assume that Margaret shouted it while she was being murdered, but it was actually Roman when he found Margaret's body.]]
68	* MeaningfulName:
69	** Mike ''Church'' was raised in the convent where Grace showed up.
70	** [[spoiler:Franklyn Madsen, which sounds like "mad son"]].
71	** [[spoiler:The fake fiancé claims Grace's real name is Katherine ''Pierce.'' Her real name turns out to be Amanda ''Sharp.'' Both related to the theme of death-by-scissors.]]
72	* MementoMacGuffin: The anklet.
73	* MiscarriageOfJustice: Roman ended up getting the death penalty for his wife's murder. [[spoiler:The ending is ambiguous as to whether Mike and Grace will clear his name]].
74	* MonochromePast: The scenes in the past are all shot in black and white. [[spoiler: In the final scene, in which we get a final glimpse of Roman and Margaret at their happiest moment, the scene slowly turns to color before fading out.]]
75	* {{Montages}}: A rare [[OpeningScroll opening montage]] of [[SpinningNewspaper newspaper headlines]], outlining the end of Roman and Margaret Strauss.
76	* MyArtMyMemory: [[spoiler:Grace/Amanda's art has a persistent scissors motif.]]
77	* MyGodWhatHaveIDone: Grace says this word for word after [[spoiler:she shoots Mike, and finds out the object he was taking out of his jacket was Margaret's anklet]].
78	* OminousLatinChanting: The finale has a three-way fight among Mike, Grace and Frankie, with the voices chanting away in the background. The music is supposed to be from the opera Roman Strauss had finished the night Margaret was murdered.
79	* OnceMoreWithClarity: In the flashback that begins the movie, when Gray asks Roman an ArmorPiercingQuestion - "But you still killed her (Margaret), didn't you, Mr. Strauss?" At this point, Roman leans down and appears to [[SilentWhisper whisper something in Gray's ear that we can't hear.]] Near the end, Gray tells Mike what really happened, and we see the scene again. [[spoiler:As Gray admits, Mike actually kissed him on the cheek, and he was unable to write anything after that]].
80	* TheOner: Grace's first hypnotherapy session at Madsen's features a technically challenging continuous circular shot around the table that Grace and Madsen are seated at.
81	* OneTrackMindedArtist: Once the amnesiac Grace's real identity is found out, she is returned to her apartment -- [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ta3tLhzuas which is full of drawings, paintings, and sculptures of scissors]] from her recurring nightmares. When the villain of the film charges at Grace and Mike with the intent to kill them, [[spoiler: he is impaled on one of Grace's scissor-nightmare sculptures]]. Overlaps with MyArtMyMemory, in that "Grace" is [[spoiler: the reincarnation of a man named Roman, Mike is the reincarnation of Roman's wife Margaret, and the villain is the same boy who stabbed Margaret to death with a pair of scissors 40 years prior]]. Grace's nightmares stem from [[spoiler: past-life]] memories of the event [[spoiler: as Roman finding his wife dead next to a pair of scissors]].
82	* OohMeAccentsSlipping: Branagh really struggles with an American accent. Thompson does better for the most part, but she does slip with the line, "Tell me something, Mike."
83	* OrphanageOfLove: What we see of the orphanage that occupies the former Strauss house suggests that it's this; the children are happy and well cared for, and Mike, who grew up there, seems to have nothing but fond memories of the place.
84	* PastLifeMemories: Madsen brings out Grace's (and later Mike's) past life memories through hypnosis.
85	* PopCulturalOsmosisFailure: When Gray Baker asks Roman if he's afraid to die:
86	-->'''Roman:''' To die is different than what anyone supposes, and luckier. \
87	'''Gray Baker:''' Is that a line from your opera? \
88	'''Roman:''' (''[[ActuallyPrettyFunny chuckling]]'') It's Creator/WaltWhitman. I can't take credit for everything, Mr. Baker.
89	* ThePowerOfLove: Aided by the anklet mentioned above.
90	* PrivateDetective: Mike is a private investigator who specializes in tracking down missing people.
91	* RealAwardFictionalCharacter: Gray Baker has received UsefulNotes/PulitzerPrize recognition for his reporting (the wording of the statement is unclear whether he was a winner of one of the journalism prizes or just a finalist).
92	* ReincarnatedAsTheOppositeSex: [[spoiler:The leads were opposite genders in their past lives (and the actors just swapped roles from the {{Flashback}} to the present day scenes).]]
93	* {{Reincarnation}}: Grace appears to be the reincarnation of a murder victim from sixty years prior. [[spoiler:She's not -- Mike is.]]
94	* ReincarnationRomance: As they learn more about Roman and Margaret's doomed romance, Mike and Grace appear to be repeating it. [[spoiler:With a [[GenderBender twist]] - Roman reincarnates into Grace and Margaret reincarnates into Mike.]]
95	* RescueRomance: Grace certainly needs to be rescued from someone.
96	* ScareChord: Used effectively (and preceded by a lull in the soundtrack for contrast) in the scene where Mike and Grace argue about the possibility that he murdered her in a previous life.
97	* ShearMenace: Margaret was stabbed to death with a pair of scissors. At the climax, [[spoiler:Frankie tries to murder Grace with the same pair of scissors, gets stabbed with them in self-defense and ultimately gets impaled on one of Grace's scissor-themed sculptures]].
98	* ShootHimHeHasAWallet: At the climax of the film, [[spoiler:Grace panics and shoots Mike when he reaches inside his jacket, thinking he's reaching for a weapon. She's horrified when she realizes he was actually trying to show her that he'd found Margaret's anklet. Fortunately, he survives]].
99	* ShoutOut:
100	** The film contains several shout-outs to Branagh's previous film, an adaptation of ''Theatre/HenryV''. Roman's prisoner number is the date of the Battle of Agincourt, the ''Life'' magazine with the article about about Roman and Margaret is a 1948 issue with a cover story about Creator/LaurenceOlivier (who also directed and starred in a film version of ''Henry V''), and a fight scene occurs on Los Angeles' Shakespeare Bridge.
101	** The distinctive apartment building where Grace turns out to live was also seen as Literature/PhilipMarlowe's home in the 1973 film version of ''Film/TheLongGoodbye''.
102	** When Mike comes to visit her, Inga is watching ''Film/SorryWrongNumber'' on TV.
103	* SilentWhisper: What Roman appears to do in Gray's ear in the flashback at the beginning (see OnceMoreWithClarity above). [[spoiler:[[SubvertedTrope Subverted]]: he actually kisses Gray on the cheek]].
104	* SirNotAppearingInThisTrailer: Inverted; though Robin Williams does appear prominently in the trailer, he's only in three scenes, and isn't listed in the opening credits or the poster. In interviews, Williams said he did this deliberately so he could [[PlayingAgainstType play against type]], and audiences wouldn't assume the movie was a comedy.
105	* SirSwearsALot: Carlisle - his first words to Mike when Mike tracks him down are, "Fuck you. I'm on a break." See also LifeIsntFair above.
106	* SourceMusic:
107	** Although much of the soundtrack is non-diegetic, a key scene is accompanied by increasingly frantic and disjointed piano music that in-universe is coming from someone rehearsing in a neighboring apartment.
108	** Another scene has a dramatic chair reveal accompanied by a musical sting from a television in the background.
109	* SurprisinglyHappyEnding: [[spoiler:For Mike and Grace at least. Granted, they do have to kill someone in order to get it.]]
110	* TalkingInYourSleep: Grace. Well, mostly screaming.
111	* TimeStandsStill: In the finale, Mike manages to run across the room and position a giant set of scissors under the villain in the time it takes him to run forward and leap a couple of feet.
112	* VisionsOfAnotherSelf: When Madsen regresses Grace into her past life, she sees Roman and Margaret, who are played by the same actors as Mike and Grace. [[spoiler:The twist is that the actors aren't playing the same people in both time periods: Mike is the reincarnation of Margaret, and Grace is the reincarnation of Roman.]]
113	* VorpalPillow: [[spoiler: Franklyn kills his mother this way for ratting him out to Mike]].
114	* WhamLine:
115	** "[[spoiler:I would never hurt you, Margaret.]]" Followed immediately by a ScareChord.
116	** When discussing what happened to Inga, Roman’s housekeeper, Baker notes, "last I heard, they opened a shop. [[spoiler:Antiques.]]"
117	* WhamShot: The scene where Mike agrees to be regressed [[spoiler:has a moment like this, when the regressed Mike looks in a mirror and sees the horrified face of Margaret looking back]].
118	* WithThisRing: Mike asks the amnesiac if she wears her Irish Wedding Band (Claddagh ring) in the "married" or "single" position. He's disappointed to see she wears it in the married position [[spoiler: until it's revealed they're a reincarnated husband and wife]].
119	* YearX: When Grace's purse is discovered, containing a driver's license with her real name, the driver's license is in a window pocket that's slightly too small for it, so that the last digit of her birth date is conveniently hidden.

Context Film / DeadAgain