OVERBOARD (1987)

OVERBOARD (1987)

Tagline: She was born to spend. He was born to offend. There's only one way they could fall in love... by accident.

(Comedy, Romance, Amnesia) [PG]

Well uh... yeah, there was that time you were working at Burger Boy, and this kid started choking on a French fry, and everybody in the place panicked, including me, except you, you knew exactly what to do. You ran over to the kid and you gave him that Heimlich, you know, and puh! The kid puked up the fry and they named you Burger Boy employee of the month. They put your picture above the cash register and everything.

In this one, a rich lady named Joanna falls off a boat and ends up on the shore with amnesia. Dean Proffitt’s wife has passed away and Joanna was super mean to him while he was remodeling her yacht closet, so he decides to trick her into thinking they are married. The original idea was to rename her Annie and keep her at the house as his wife for a month to do chores etc. to earn back the $600.00 she stiffed him on for the closet job. Over time though, she starts winning Dean’s kids and heart and he has a tougher and tougher time telling her she isn’t actually married to him.

First off, this is probably my favorite movie Goldie Hawn has ever done. She manages to be two characters essentially and the transition from a rich spoiled elite to a poor mother of 4 is incredible. There is also definite chemistry between Goldie Hawn who plays Annie and Kurt Russell (BIG TROUBLE IN LITTLE CHINA) who plays Dean. Their chemistry makes sense because at that time they had been together 4 years and are still a couple to this day. OVERBOARD always makes me emotional because I really like both Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell and seeing Goldie in this role just reminds me of how great love can be and how much it can overcome even in the most bizarre circumstances. 

Aside from that, the child actors in this movie are all wonderful and it must have been a blast filming this. I guess Goldie Hawn and Kurt Russell even had a bar-b-q for the whole cast. I also love that we had a few scenes with Roddy McDowall as Andrew. McDowall is most famous for playing Peter Vincent in FRIGHT NIGHT and FRIGHT NIGHT PART 2. That isn’t the only connection to horror flicks of the 80s though, this movie has though. Edward Herrmann plays Grant in this and is most famous for his role as Max in THE LOST BOYS. Kurt Russell was also in THE THING. 

If I had a few complaints it would be the final song in the movie. The rest of the film has a pretty decent score and soundtrack. I guess I thought they could have done a better job picking the final song we hear. I also thought it wasn’t really necessary to have Annie find a pair of panties in Dean’s truck, then for Billy to take the blame saying that he was the one cheating. Especially given the result of all that. Admittedly though, these are super nitpicky things that don’t really have a negative impact on the movie as a whole. 

What works best about this movie isn’t actually the comedic element. It’s that all the characters are pretty relatable and the movie’s warmhearted nature. It manages to take what is basically an “abduction” and make it a premise that worked overall because of the way the film is delivered. If this hadn’t been on HBO MAX I probably would have forgotten about this gem, but it is one of the better romantic comedies of the 80s.

Overall I have to give this thing a 5 out of 7. Having a slightly more “credible” situation would have done this thing some favors, but it’s still very good. 

GRAPHICS ARE THE PROPERTY OF METRO-GOLDWYN-MAYER AND ARE USED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY. 

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