- If you're not a member why not Start a FREE trial
- Already a member? Sign in here
- Get our newsletter
- Help
|
PS I Love You
This is a good chick flick, if you will pardon the possibly derogatory term. What I mean by that: if you were looking for a girls' night out at the pictures, just you and your mates, maybe your mum or your sisters, P.S I Love You has all the requisite ingredients. You'll laugh. You'll cry. You'll bond. You'll cry some more. All this, and Gerard Butler too! If that is what you're after, by all means rate the movie a ten and add it to your rental queue. Speaking for myself, I'm immune to Mr Butler's charms; whether it's bellowing through 300 or turning up the blarney as a raucous but thoroughly domesticated pub rocker here, he strikes me as beefcake without the hot sauce. There's scarcely a moment in either film where his character resembles a living, feeling being. To be fair, in PS I Love You, he's dead before the opening titles, thus depriving Holly (Hilary Swank) of her beloved spouse while at a stroke supplying writer-director Richard LaGravenese (adapting Cecilia Ahern's novel) with an intriguing challenge. How to structure a romantic comedy between a widow and her late lamented?
A few weeks after the wake, while Holly is still drowning in a sea of well-earned self pity - singing along to Judy Garland, no less - Gerry sends word that she hasn't heard the last from him. No indeed. She can expect a series of letters arriving by various means over the next few months. All he asks is that she follows his instructions - which she does, whether it means going out to party with her girlfriends (Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon); buying herself a new outfit and singing karaoke (oh please!); or, you know, taking off for a holiday in the old sod. Presumably old Gerry had excellent insurance. Again, maybe it's just me, but I found it hard to overlook the arrogance implicit in such wholesale presumption, and dubious that such "a gift" would really facilitate the grieving process. In a more honest film (or at any rate, a shorter one), wouldn't Holly read the first letter, burst into floods of tears, then rip it up and wonder how she ever got mixed up with such a controlling jerk? But we are not to be rid of Mr Butler so easily. Each letter doesn't just inspire a step towards acceptance, it also cues a flashback down memory lane - a chance to savour Gerry for the gorgeous goofball that he was. Occasionally he also creeps into frame in the present tense, Ghost-style, though it's clear these are really projections on Holly's part.
Now, Richard LaGravenese is not some talentless hack. As a screenwriter, his credits include a couple of worthy items (The Fisher King; The Ref; The Bridges Of Madison County) and his first film as director (Living Out Loud) showed promise. But that was ten years ago, and his only feature since was last year's disappointingly hackneyed inspirational teacher drama, Freedom Writers (also with Hilary Swank). He works up some so-so comedy here and there, though God knows Swank is not a natural comedienne, she can handle the emotional stuff. Harry Connick Jr is fun as Holly's "weird, bitter" friend (and looking pretty rough these days). And it is sort of interesting, on a technical level, to see a rom-com where the meet cute is reserved for near the two hour mark� Actually the film also throws up some valid and valuable sentiments (sometimes literally)� enough for some audiences to embrace it and overlook its plentiful flaws. The greatest of which remains the central conceit of letters from beyond the grave, such a forced, unwieldy and literary notion, for me, at any rate, it left this tearjerker dead on arrival. Tom Charity 
More information about PS I Love You » Members' ReviewsReviews Voted Most HelpfulMost Recent Reviews |
