P.S. I Love You

P.S. I Love You is the epistolary version of My Life. Instead of videos, letters are posthumously delivered from beyond the grave and they're addressed to a grieving wife (Hilary Swank), not an unborn child. The films' respective premises are similar, but P.S. I Love You lacks the latter's tolerable sentiment, and when it does display the tiniest sliver of feeling, it's strained and hardly convincing.

Hilary Swank is an unlikely romantic heroine, and not just because she's often cast as hardened androgynous types. Her character, Holly, is wound with nervous energy, but Swank magnifies her quirks so much that she's seemingly parodying the widow archetype. However, Swank can't shoulder all of the blame for Holly's flighty ways; the actress leans on a screenplay that favors two extremes: convoluted, circular dialogue and trite declarations about love, neither of which come close to resembling realistic speech. When the film opens, for example, Holly and her husband, Gerry (Gerard Butler), are in the middle of a heated argument. She's prone to sudden melodramatic outbursts, including chucking her shoes at Gerry's head and shrieking comical contemptuous statements like, "I want you to leave if you wanna leave." The soap opera-meets-sitcom fight is ultimately resolved as the two collapse into a lovey-dovey embrace, but a dark cloud descends upon the film when it's soon revealed that Gerry has passed away of a brain tumor.

Holly is understandably devastated, clinging to—and ridiculously toting around— Gerry's massive padlocked urn like a security blanket. That's when the letters start arriving—didactic notes telling Holly how to function in her depressed state. Sample instructions include orders to go out with her gal pals, sell her husband's clothes, and don a glittery dress for karaoke night. While Swank juts out her bottom lip as a sign that she's struggling with Gerry's therapeutic dictates, her girlfriends (played by Gina Gershon and Lisa Kudrow), traipse around offering semi-enthusiastic "go girl" support. Kudrow's sarcastic barbs provide the occasional laugh, but her sneering ways wear thin after the first few scenes she appears in.

P.S. I Love You also drowns under its running time, a conventional two hours that, due to the film's repetitive structure—letter arrives, Holly performs a task, Holly gets sad—sluggishly ticks by. Especially monotonous are Holly's encounters with flirtatious would-be love interest Daniel (Harry Connick Jr.). His come-ons assume the form of childish jeers and she responds with a barely conscious glazed look in her eyes. Sexual tension is non-existent, despite the handsome paring of Connick's rugged good looks and Swank's lithe, feminine figure.

Director Richard LaGravenese adapted the film from author Cecelia Ahern's novel of the same name, a work which, on screen, can't get past its easy summer read roots. Though the book may be ideal for kicking back with a cocktail on the beach, the movie is neither breezy nor arousing enough to hold audience interest or even elicit some cheesy cathartic tears. Fluffy, yes, but gratifying in the least? The answer is a resounding no. Do yourself a favor and rent any selection from Hugh Grant's filmography to sate your need for fuzzy romance.

—Heidi Atwal
05.07.08