“P.S. I Love You” (Warner Brothers)
Gets The Thought Across
“P. S. I Love You” is the kind of movie that shouldn’t work. It has a really schmaltzy premise. Couple is married, in love, looking to their future when all at once tragedy strikes. Husband dies and wife is left as a grieving widow. Then she begins to receive letters from him telling her things to do in her life. Ewwwww! But somehow Hilary Swank and Gerard Butler make this movie emotionally satisfying and fun to watch.
Holly and Gerry (Swank and Butler) are a couple struggling to make ends meet. She is a real estate agent and not happy with her work while he and a friend own a chauffeur service. They bicker a lot but down deep they really love each other. Then tragedy strikes and Gerry dies of a brain tumor.
One of the plusses of the movie is you skip the illness part. They go from bickering couple to a scene at the funeral wake. Holly is inconsolable in her grief but her two best friends Denise and Sharon (Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon) do their best to console her. Still it seems Holly is going to drown in her grief.
Then the letters start coming from Gerry. They tell her certain things to do that will get her out of the apartment. She and her friends are mystified by these letters but it does cheer her up some. She actually gets back to living.
Swank is a solid actress who can bring a character totally to life. She makes Holly someone you empathize with from the very beginning. Opposite her Butler is macho and tender at the same time. Their chemistry is excellent and that is a real plus for this movie.
The supporting cast is solid too. Kudrow and Gershon add comic relief while Kathy Bates is tender but testy as Holly’s mother. Harry Connick, Jr. is awkward as a guy who works in her mother’s bar. He is supposed to be awkward so that is a good thing. Finally Harry Dean Morgan plays a man she meets in Ireland. Morgan gained fame as Izzy’s doomed lover Denny on “Grey’s Anatomy” and he makes a romantic impression here of the first order.
The film is rated PG-13 for profanity, brief nudity and adult situations.
Every now and then the movie strays off on a tangent and you think this is going to ruin everything, then suddenly it finds its sea legs and rights itself. And most of those times it is the skill and charm of the actors that make every thing alright.
“P.S. I Love You” is a movie for romantics. If you don’t love love and passion you are not going to enjoy this movie. It works in spite of itself and makes the heart swell with emotion. It won’t win any Oscars for Hilary Swank but it will increase her fan base. Plus it will certainly gain attention for Butler and Morgan.
I scored “P.S. I Love You” a handwritten 6 out of 10.
