Veronica Review:

Plot: Grace Biggs is doomed, unless she gets a heart transplant. The heart is there, but at the expense of architect Bob Rueland`s wife, who was killed in a car crash. After a year Grace and Bob meet by coincidence. It`s not such a big coincidence that she falls in love with Bob.

It`s always hard to shake off the image of a character from popular tv series. Especially when that is Fox Mulder from the extremely popular series the X-files. The danger in Return to me was that we wouldn`t see Bob Rueland, but Fox Mulder fall in love with Grace (Minnie Driver). After all Duchovny showed us in Playing God that he couldn`t do much with his stiff acting style. But in this romantic comedy he plays surprisingly well and he leaves Fox Mulder far behind him. An even bigger surprise is the spark that actually occurs between the two leading characters.

Televizier Review:

But Duchovny isn`t the strongest chain in this romantic destiny comedy, which is mainly due to the nice supporting roles from O`Conner as Irish grandfather and his Italian friends. Most of jokes are theirs, although their sociability is sometimes a little exaggerated and even becomes irritating, while Duchovny and Driver mostly drama to look forward to. For the rest the bizarre and implausible story, that Bob "falls in love with the same heart twice", is very well put by director Bonnie Hunt (her directing debut). She just lets everybody who hears the story sit there with disbelief and the obvious thought that you can`t think of a story like that. You can, and that makes an amusing, well directed movie, with appealing performances and nice dialogues.

Romantic Hollywood movies often tend to pile up one cliché after another. That isn`t bad, after all, romance isn`t about surprise or originality, but about an honest and touching result of the most occurring theme in movie history: Love.

Return to me is a movie that touches the right chord. Why? The script from Bonnie Hunt (who also directed the movie and plays the role of Megan) is pure and the chemistry between the leading characters David Duchovny (the X-files) and Minnie Driver (Good Will Hunting) seems sincere. In Return to me it`s all about the heart. David Duchovny plays Bob, an architect whose wife Elizabeth was killed in an accident. But her death is the rescue for Grace (Minnie Driver), a young woman with a serious illness, who gets a second chance, thanks to Elizabeth`s heart. Bob has a lot of trouble coping with his wife`s death. He is obsessed by his work and doesn`t have any interest in women. But then he meets Grace.

*** (=good, maximum = ****, minimum = *)

Hitkrant Review:

DUCHOVNY`S NEW LOVE HAS THE HEART IN THE RIGHT PLACE.

RETURN TO ME

For all those people who are waiting in vain for seven seasons for that one love-scene between Mulder and Scully in the X-files, we now have a consolation prize: You can see at least half of this duo walking around madly in love in the movie Return to me. David Duchovny (that half) gets to play the sort of role that Richard Gere has been doing for years. But it seems that Duchovny has to get used to it. He plays Bob and is very happy with his wife Elizabeth (Joely Richardson). Unfortunately their happiness is only for a short time. The couple gets into an accident and Elizabeth doesn`t survive, but she did have a donor card.

A year later Bob falls, totally unexpected, in love with the waitress Grace (Minnie Driver). They seem to be made for each other, because even the dog from Bob`s wife seems to get along great with Grace. Soon it shows why: Grace received a donor heart a year ago and that heart.right! It`s a little predictable. But Return to me is a better movie than many others, because how sweet it all gets, it never gets to clingy and their is always something to laugh about. The ideal summermovie.

**** (= very good, maximum stars = *****, minimum = *)