For those who believe in eternal love -- meaning that which doesn't let a pesky little thing known as death get in the way -- there's one fairly significant issue, and that involves letting go of the deceased while the survivor is still in the flesh and blood mode.
In some cases, that doesn't take long, but for others, it takes year or decades, and in rare instances, never occurs at all. Of course, most bystanders hope that the survivor will eventually move on with their life and maybe even meet someone new (although that brings up the issue, for those with a personal view of their definition of Heaven, of how to handle two or more loves once everyone's reunited in the hereafter).
When it comes to movies, there's no shortage of tearjerkers dealing with love lost to the Grim Reaper, be they of the straight drama (and thus usually a downer) variety or the kind that try to mix laughs with such romantic pathos. And then there are those that bring some sort of supernatural element into play, usually in the form of the deceased coming back or even just hanging around as some sort of departed soul (in flicks such as "Ghost," "Always" and countless more).
It's a different sort of "ghost" that haunts Holly Kennedy (Hilary Swank) in "P.S. I Love You," a well-intentioned but awkwardly clumsy and mishandled tearjerker that suckers for these sorts of films will likely love and most cynics (including critics) will dislike to varying extents. You see, Holly's dearly departed husband, Gerry (Gerard Butler), has recently kicked the proverbial bucket (sometime in the middle of a jarring segue from the opening sequence of comedy-based marital discord to an Irish wake in, natch, a local pub).
Yet, rather than come back in spirit form, Gerry has done something even worse. You see, while dying of brain cancer, he still had the wherewithal, however misguided it turned out to be, to communicate with his widowed wife from the great beyond via letters, recordings, and gifts, all supposedly to help her get through her grief.
The only problem is that for both Holly and thus the viewer, all of that serves only to remind everyone of the dead man and the couple's past romance. It certainly serves to prevent her from moving on with her life, despite fate and the filmmakers dangling several attractive and tantalizing bachelors -- in the form of Harry Connick Jr. and Jeffrey Dean Morgan -- before her.
To make matters worse, the filmmakers -- writer/director Richard LaGravenese and co-writer Steven Rogers -- keep reminding us of the past via all sorts of non-sequential flashbacks that show the couple in their earlier and doubly alive days, including their "meet cute" introduction to each other.
While that tactic and all of the related material is supposed to elicit a heartwarming yet bittersweet tear in the female viewer's eye as well as pangs of guilt in her male companion's mind for not being as romantic as his counterpart (no matter how dead) on the screen, the overall cinematic affair ends up feeling clunky when not frustrating.
Just as it's bad enough that the deceased's ploy only serves to remind his widow of their past and thus prevents her from getting on with her life, the repeated reminder tactic of happier times makes us long to have the ill-fated couple together and thus have no desire to see her land either of the eligible studs positioned in her line of sight.
It certainly doesn't help that Morgan's character is a near spitting image of the dead man, thus perpetuating the reminder of what once was, all in somewhat of a creepy and/or icky fashion (particularly since the introduction of that character is due to the dead man's posthumous manipulation of what will happen next).
Yes, this observation comes from a guy with no particular love or even fondness for so-called "chick flicks," and this one's teaming with the obligatory attributes. There's the strained mother/daughter relationship (matching Swank with Kathy Bates), the "I'm quirky but can be serious when needed" friend character played by Lisa Kudrow (who seems particularly hard up for male companionship), and the playing of vintage romantic comedies and plain old romances on the TV (which serve as another sort of reminder for viewers -- the kind that elicits the old saying that they don't make 'em like they used to).
To be fair, the film does have its share of funny, winning, and heartwarming/emotional moments that work as intended, and the performances -- notwithstanding the demands of the script -- are decent (especially from Butler who one wishes was in the film more, even with all of the flashbacks that prevent him from resting in peace).
The rest of the affair, however, feels artificial and contrived, from the basic conceit to the various smaller elements that are too familiar and/or forced to elicit any sort of favorable response, except, of course, for those who love this sort of tale and material.
While I'm sometimes sucked in by such material -- as was the case with Steven Spielberg's uneven but nevertheless underrated 1989 "Always" -- this one didn't touch me emotionally, although viewer response will wildly vary.
p.s. I almost forgot, "P.S. I Love You" rates as just a 4 out of 10.
![[Logo]](/images/screenit_logo2.jpg){kind=logo}
