How sad is this?

Best movie of this year hands down!

By the time the dramatic fireworks start popping off, each one feels earned.

Worth seeing just to witness how winsome it is.

Lucy Chadman (Shelley Long) is a former-teacher Long Island housewife uncomfortable with the high class parties required by her ambitious Manhattan surgeon Jason (Corbin Bernsen) looking to be chief of plastic surgery at the Knickerbocker. Her gold-digging college friend Kim Lacey (Sela Ward) is three-times-married and looking for a fourth. Her son Danny is a passionate chef. Her sister Zelda (Judith Ivey) is an odd character dabbling in witchcraft. Lucy chokes to death on a South Korean chicken ball from Zelda. Exactly one year later, Zelda uses a spellbook to bring back Lucy. She finds the world has changed. Danny didn't go to Columbia and instead, opened his own restaurant. Jason married Kim and sold the house. She returns to the Knickerbocker ER to talk to Dr. Kevin Scanlon (Gabriel Byrne) who treated her a year ago. Unbeknownst to her, she needs to find true love by the next full moon.This is not that funny. Shelley Long's pratfalls are awkward and unfunny. The first half of the story is good. The romance takes a long time to start. Gabriel Byrne doesn't show up until the end of the first act and even later for him to fully be a character. The second half of the story is clunky after the world discovers her return from the dead. This is simply not funny enough and I put most of that on writer Susan Isaacs. Director Frank Perry does a workmanlike job but his comedic takes are not laugh worthy either. The romance is fine and I kinda like the wacky sister.

i love this film it totally brings me back to being 10 again, it was just wacky enough to hold my attention, fair enough it doesn't match up to todays standard of movie but its a heart warming story that i love to watch again and again. Shelly plays the total scatter brain that i expect of her and her sister Zelda soon enough becomes the voice of reason. Danny plays the ever doting son and i have to say was a hunk in the 80s for me. i totally recommend this film to anyone with a weird sense of humour, for goodness sake she chokes on a chicken ball. My favourite part is at the end when she pretends to be possessed and talks about the cowboy boots that cracked me up, watch you'll see what i mean. Its a classic family film that you'll really enjoy.

'Hello again' might not be the best movie ever made in fact you could class it more as a made for TV movie but its not trying to be 'A Street car Named Desire' all its trying to do is bring joy to Shelly Long fans. It made me chuckle. The premise for the movie is very good. A house wife who lives through her husband and has no particular purpose in life suddenly dies but only for her to be brought back to life for her to live her life the way she should of all along. However the film is very patchy in places with no real character development, change in plot confusing, jokes fall flat, random scenes clutter up the film, the list of problems could go on. Shelly Long does the best she can with a dodgy script as do the other actors. Her performance leaves you in no doubts of her comedic talents. But through out its problems it never lose its its tone. Lighthearted fun for all the family especially Shelly Long fans.

Director Frank Perry, who in the early 1970s showed some honest talent and an abundance of visual wit, channels the same cartoony approach to 'life' here as he did with his "Compromising Positions"...and the affects are equally as meager. Shelley Long dies but comes back, however there's nothing relatably human about Long's approach to acting. Yes, she's playing a klutzy ditz with a heart of gold, but Long has no shadings, and when she tries for sincerity it rings hollow (even her overly-clear speaking voice sounds as if it's coming from an echo chamber and not a person). I liked Long in the underrated "Irreconcilable Differences", where she really had a chance to carve out a character beyond her snippy "Cheers" persona. It's not that she's a bad actress, there just doesn't seem to be a soul in that body. Pert and perky, she's utterly one-dimensional, pink-and-blonde-and-bland. Who cares if she returns from the dead? *1/2 from ****