Alan Rickman’s Forgotten Supernatural Romance Is Secretly One of His Best (& Co-Stars a Fellow Harry Potter Actor)

Alan Rickman was undeniably one of the greatest actors cinema has ever seen. However, when people talk about him, almost everyone immediately thinks of Severus Snape. After all, the role had such a huge impact on his career that even today, he tends to be remembered more by Harry Potter fans than by the general audience. But you really can’t sum up the actor with just that one character, given how much more varied his filmography was, and how some of his best works have been forgotten or even gone unnoticed because they never had the same reach as his biggest movies. One of them, for example, is a pretty strange love story in which Rickman’s character literally comes back from the dead. And why is it worth talking about?

If you mainly know the actor from Die Hard or Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves, outside of J.K. Rowling’s book adaptations, it might be hard to picture him as a romantic boyfriend who comes home after dying, right? But by the time the ’90s came around, Rickman had already been showing that he could do much more than play cold men and intimidating authority figures. And here’s the thing: this one is absolutely worth watching.

Why Truly, Madly, Deeply Is Easily One of Alan Rickman’s Best Movies

Released in 1990, Truly, Madly, Deeply was written and directed by Anthony Minghella, who was still at the beginning of his career as a filmmaker. This unconventional story follows Nina (Juliet Stevenson), who is completely devastated after the sudden death of Jamie (Rickman), her boyfriend and a cellist. And she simply can’t go back to her normal routine and accept that he’s gone, so she remains stuck in their relationship, their memories, and the life they shared together. But then comes the part that, in pretty much any other romance, would be treated as the best news possible: Jamie comes back as a ghost. And why is it such an unconventional supernatural film? Because when he comes back, that’s when the problems begin.

Nina doesn’t get some perfect version of Jamie. Instead, she gets the same Jamie with the same habits, quirks, and characteristics that probably annoyed her when they were together. Basically, turning him into a ghost wasn’t a way to romanticize the story, but rather a way to deliver an interesting message: staying stuck in the past, even when you want to because you miss someone, can be complicated. And this is where Rickman’s performance really deserves attention, since he knows exactly how to make the most of the idea. How? It would have been very easy to imagine a more melancholic ghost who spends the entire film staring sadly at Nina and saying profound things about life and death. Thankfully, that’s now what happens: he’s funny, inconvenient, affectionate, and, at times, pretty annoying. In other words, there’s something very believable about the way the character was written, as well as in the actor’s pitch-perfect performance.

And this is where it’s really worth highlighting just how different this character is from the serious and restrained roles we had gotten used to seeing from him, not only Snape, but Hans Gruber from Die Hard or Judge Turpin from Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, for example — critics pointed this out and praised him for it. And on top of seeing it as a great change of pace since Rickman was starting to get typecast as a villain, they also recognized that he wasn’t just playing the movie’s romantic lead, but he knew how to build a character with a very specific and interesting personality. And, of course, his dynamic with Stevenson is a major part of what makes everything work, with the two being noted for their “natural rapport.” But overall, one of the things that stands out most in people’s reactions to Truly, Madly, Deeply is Rickman himself. On Rotten Tomatoes, the movie has an 87% audience score, with plenty of viewers specifically mentioning him.

And, interestingly enough, there’s also a Harry Potter connection here, because besides Rickman, the cast includes David Ryall, who plays George, a widowed exterminator who, much like Nina, has lost someone important and still has to figure out how to live with that absence. His role is much smaller, but it’s fun to see that almost 20 years later, Ryall would also appear in the famous franchise as Elphias Doge, an old friend of Albus Dumbledore and a member of the Order of the Phoenix in Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1. Remember him?

But okay, now that we’ve covered all of that, what actually made the film so good and so highly recommended to this day? Because yes, Truly, Madly, Deeply, even though it isn’t very well remembered, still gets positive feedback, and it’s hard not to become curious about it. Well, part of that might have something to do with the infamous Ghost, which was also released that same year.

Despite Being Forgotten, the Film Received Critical Acclaim and Was Compared to Ghost

As we’ve already established, Minghella’s movie goes a little against expectations, being more of a story about moving on than a romance, with grief treated in a much more everyday way (which is also why the comedic tone works). It’s no coincidence that the rules behind the supernatural aspect aren’t important, meaning we don’t need to know exactly why Jamie came back or how the ghost world works; the idea is to focus on the effect everything has on Nina. And that’s why there have been so many comparisons to Ghost, although according to many critics, Truly, Madly, Deeply‘s approach works a little better. Roger Ebert described the movie as “a Ghost for grownups.”

And that’s pretty cool to see because Minghella went on to direct major features like The English Patient and The Talented Mr. Ripley, but before those, instead of treating his first production as an opportunity to make something huge, he chose to keep the story relatively intimate — most of the conflict comes from the characters, and that gives the movie room to move between comedy and drama without turning the scenes into some big lesson about grief. And the film is actually better because of it. The premise is already absurd, but the director doesn’t try to hide that: it’s not as if Jamie acts like he has just returned from some transcendent spiritual experience; he simply comes back and starts acting normally. That gives the feature some genuinely funny moments without taking away from the emotional side of the story. It’s not pure drama; it’s balanced and mature.

But it’s also not difficult to understand why it eventually became a forgotten movie. Truly, Madly, Deeply doesn’t have the scale of Rickman’s other productions, doesn’t have a premise that’s immediately commercial, and it was naturally overshadowed by better-known films from both the actor and the director. Still, it didn’t go unrecognized at the time, including Minghella winning the BAFTA for Best Original Screenplay, while the two leads received nominations for their performances.

At the end of the day, whether you’re a Rickman fan or just someone who loves a good movie, this is a production that’s absolutely worth recommending. Truly, Madly, Deeply is one of the most interesting opportunities to see the actor doing something completely different from the roles he came best known for, while also getting a truly satisfying experience from its original and honest take on an important subject.

Truly, Madly, Deeply is available to rent on Prime Video.