Ended up watching this unplanned when my mom put it on while I was hanging out with her and my dad. It's a kind of magical realism romantic comedy, where the romance between a cynical journalist (William Hurt) and a recent hire at the publication (Andie MacDowell) is schmaltzy but the magical side is surprisingly interesting, at least to me. The journalists leave bustling Chicago to investigate a letter sent from a quiet corner of Iowa claiming that an angel has been living with a local motel owner. This turns out to be true.

The archangel Michael (John Travolta) is an anti-puritanical take on the Abrahamic divinity, being a sugar-devouring, battle-happy character that smokes regularly and enjoys mutually passionate flings with women. He loves the Earth and moving with the whims of his heart, right down to wanting to see roadside attractions like the world's biggest ball of twine.

He has limited time in this world and has seemingly spent the vast majority of it living without urgency at the motel with its elderly owner. He eats bowls of Frosted Flakes with lots of sugar and smokes cigarettes. There's a bit of reference to John Milton's Paradise Lost in how Michael smells very pleasant, similar to how angels in that poem are supposed to carry a sweet fragrance about them.

Michael has a mission to complete on Earth that naturally involves the two mortal leads, but he avoids broadcasting this, and his free-spirited, authentic behavior and intuitive approach to people and situations comes off as almost Eastern in its philosophical undertones. This isn't a Daoist story, but Michael himself harmonizes with similar themes. Occasionally he does divine intervention, like forcing a car tire to pop so his road trip with the humans can have a detour to visit the world's largest Teflon frying pan, but mostly he's about action through non-action.

This is an odd movie that doesn't feel like it fully comes together. I would've preferred something that focused more on the spiritual implications of an angel that defies the expectations built up by related religions, but Michael himself is mostly an extraordinary element for an unextraordinary and eventually sappy romance plot. I feel like this movie is on the verge of being something I'd like quite a bit, like there might be more here than I'm able to recognize at the moment. That could just be wishful thinking, though. A more pessimistic interpretation is that this movie is playing with the trappings of spirituality while lacking any consequential bite, making it more of a conveniently agnostic piece. I prefer clinging to the hints of fusion between Western and Eastern ideas here.