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One impressive speculation in this movie is that the face of the doctor is the last sight many people see on this earth. Thus, doctors should try to be pleasant, if not beatific. Otherwise, Dragonfly is another nonsectarian afterlife movie in which belief is greatly rewarded.
A hardened Chicago ER medic, Joe Darrow (Kevin Costner) overcomes his skepticism to believe he’s being visited by the spirit of Emily, his beloved late wife. Presumably, she has a message for him. Emily (Susanna Thompson), also a doctor, was on a do good medical mission (despite her pregnancy) in the Colombian bush. In the opening sequence, we see her and others on a bus being swept away in a rainstorm.
Many of the signals are coming from the young cancer patients Emily had treated at the hospital. Several of these kids have had near death experiences and draw strange cross like squiggles. Then there is a Catholic nun (Linda Hunt) who researches such cases. In a spooky chapel surrounded by banks of blue votive candles, she urges Joe to believe and reassures him that he’s not nuts.
Director Tom Shadyac has scored with broad comedies (The Nutty Professor, Liar Liar) and wants to play this story like an X-Files episode. Joe lives in a creepy Victorian house alone with Emily’s parrot, who won’t talk to him but goes berserk on cue. Various comatose patients pass along information.
The shocker scenes are corny and misleading, spoiling a potential supernatural love story. A well conceived upbeat ending confirms that ghost Emily is as benign as your sainted grandmother. Kathy Bates is helpful as a refreshingly down to earth lawyer neighbor. The likable Costner, cast again as a grieving romantic (Message in a Bottle), needs a break. Clumsy supernatural detective story loses its sense of direction.
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