At this point, Robert Downey Jr. is most known for his role as Iron Man in the sea of Marvel movies that have come out in the last 15 years. Anything prior to his post-rehab comeback seems largely forgotten, and that’s especially the case for his best 90s rom com. If you’ve never heard of 1993’s Heart and Souls, this’ll whet your appetite: It’s like if The Sixth Sense was a sweet and heartwarming romantic comedy. And after years of never being able to stream it anywhere, it’s finally available online. Watch it while you still can!
The film begins in 1959 as a group of people hop on a San Francisco trolleybus late at night. They have no connection to each other–they’re just trying to get home. When the driver gets distracted, the trolleybus careens off an overpass. Just as the passengers of that fateful bus pass away, a baby is born nearby.
For reasons unknown to the spirits at the time, the ghosts of the passengers of that trolleybus are now attached to that kid. He grows up seeing his four ghost friends, talking and singing with them, but when his “imaginary friends” start getting him in trouble, the spirits decide to go invisible. They’d still be with him always, but they wouldn’t show themselves so little Thomas could have a normal life.
Years later, Thomas–played by Robert Downey Jr.–is an adult and has no memory of his four best ghost friends. In fact, he’s turned out kind of shitty. The ghosts follow him around, unbeknownst to him, while quietly judging him.
But when the ghosts learn that they should have been getting his help to pass on to the afterlife all along, they have a short window of time to handle all their unfinished business. Now Thomas can see ghosts again when all he wants is to be normal and fall in love with Anne and not be followed around by a bunch of spirits.
Heart and Souls is one of those touching movies that will simultaneously give you warm fuzzies and rack you with sobs. It’s sweet and sad and a surprising entry into the ghostly rom coms subgenre. While it’s one of my favorite movies from the 90s, I haven’t been able to watch it for some time because, up until recently, you couldn’t find it anywhere online. Luckily, now you can stream Heart and Souls on Starz. Considering how absent the movie has been on streaming and how it’s not available, even to rent or buy, anywhere else online, you might want to catch this Robert Downey Jr. romantic comedy while you still can.
