The movie opens with love at first sight, between a guy who works at a Chicago publishing company (Alec Baldwin) and a woman who tends bar (Meg Ryan).

They smile and their eyes light up, and in an astonishingly short time they know they must be married to one another. At the wedding, a strange thing happens, and don't read another word unless you want to learn an important story point. An old man appears, who nobody seems to know, and he wishes the young couple well, and kisses the bride on the lips. And then . . .

But we know who the old man is. His name is Julius (Sydney Walker), and he lives in Berwyn with his daughter and son-in-law, and after his wife died he just sort of vegetated. On this day he got up, walked to the train station, and took the next train, which happened to be going to Lake Forest.

And he walked into the wedding and kissed the bride.

On his honeymoon, the Baldwin character begins to realize something has gone wrong. His bride looks the same, but she isn't the same. There are subtle clues in her behavior. Things she wouldn't ordinarily say. Eventually Baldwin realizes that someone else is inside her. She is not the woman he married.

All of this will be familiar to people who have seen the play by Craig Lucas, who based this screenplay on it. It's a gimmick, all right, but an interesting one, because it's the setup for some unusually thoughtful movie dialogue, and a final scene of genuine emotional power. I won't reveal the scene.

Of the dialogue, I'll say how unusual it is for Hollywood characters to talk longingly and thoughtfully about our search for happiness in this world where most assuredly we will die. "Prelude to a Kiss" is the kind of movie that can inspire long conversations about the only subject really worth talking about, the Meaning of It All.

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