SOMEWHERE TOMORROW

US, 1985, 91 minutes, Colour.
Sarah Jessica Parker, Nancy Addison, Tom Shea.
Directed by Robert Wiemer.

Somewhere Tomorrow is a youth fantasy for adolescents. It focuses on a heroine who is lying in coma, who is reacting against her widowed mother remarrying a policeman friend, who enjoys riding a horse and comes across a plane crashed and experiences a ghost. However, it is all part of the heroine's coma and is like a dream enabling her to face reality.

The film is somewhat fey in its treatment of the situations, especially the ghost. However, the link is made with the media with the heroine watching scenes of Cary Grant as the ghost in Topper. However, the film's heart is in the right place in terms of relationships, in accepting people's lives and letting them be free rather than holding on to them.

1. Pleasing telemovie? For youth audiences? Adults?

2. The town locations, the countryside? The special effects for the ghost? Musical score?

3. The title, its reference to Lori, to Terry? The resolution of anxieties and problems?

4. The setting with Lori in coma, the concern of her mother, her stepfather? Paul and Terry and their concern? Her finally waking from coma? With the old people? Her discovery of the truth?

5. Lori's experiences in coma: her love for her mother, memories of her father, not wanting her mother to remarry? Her friendship with Alec but hostility about the marriage? Her mother going out? Her going riding, the fall? The encounter with Paul and the crashed plane? The ambulance coming for Paul? Terry and his going away, coming back with the horse? The discovery that he was a ghost? Her friendship with him, trying to find the reasons for his coming back, his sharing her life? The book and the message from her father? His persuading her that her mother should remarry? The wedding ceremony? Friendship with Paul, Paul's clergy father? Paul and the presence of Terry as the ghost? The farewell from Terry and his explaining that she would have her own life to lead? Waking up and meeting him?

6. Terry and Paul, the flight, the crash? Paul and his injuries, his father, friendship with Lori, the experience of the ghost? Terry, pleasant, coming to see Lori, going to school with her on the bus, the shower sequence, the comic style? Serious? His explaining her situation to her, helping to realise her mother's life and the need for remarriage? His disappearing? Reappearance?

7. The mother, her concern, the memory of her dead husband, Alec, the friendship? Their discussion about Lori's realisation that they were in love? The wedding ceremony?

8. Psychological fantasy? The film as a dream, the psyche working out what must be done with characters from life? How credible? Persuasive?