Dir. Mark Waters, 2005, US, 95 mins
Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo
Director Mark Waters has made a couple of rather good films. Surprisingly good, in fact. Those dreading a saccharine rehash of the Disney classic were shocked when his updating of Freaky Friday (2003) turned out to be one of the smartest kid’s films in recent memory. His follow-up, Mean Girls (2004), was even better. Belying its trashy teen credentials, the film’s sparky exuberance and genuine wit made it another unexpected triumph, comparable to Amy Heckerling at her finest. So it comes as a genuine disappointment that Just Like Heaven displays little of that early promise, instead settling for an unremarkably pleasant rom-com at its most generic.
After a series of unsuccessful viewings, recently widowed David (Ruffalo) is relieved to finally find the seemingly perfect San Francisco apartment. But his peace is soon shattered when the controlling and neurotic Elizabeth (Witherspoon) mysteriously appears in his living room one night, claiming the apartment belongs to her. After several more unexplained apparitions, David becomes convinced Elizabeth is the ghost of the former tenant, and sets about helping to uncover her forgotten past. Initially at conflict, the duo soon grow increasingly fond of each other, and it is not long before a love connection begins to blossom between David and his ghostly roommate.
The film isn’t without its fair share of charms. Witherspoon and Ruffalo make a cute enough couple, and things whistle by at a pleasingly swift pace. It’s just that you can’t help but want more from those involved. The main problem is the film is just not funny enough. Waters’ previous efforts have elevated themselves above their narrative familiarities with some unexpectedly smart dialogue, but here a disappointing tendency towards pathos takes over, leading to an unfortunately inescapable regularity. While the leads are amiable enough, their performances feel rather restrained, with Witherspoon displaying little of the comic sparkle she has previously exhibited in a film like Election (1999). Meanwhile Ruffalo sleepwalks through what is perhaps his most undemanding role yet. Only a scene in which Elizabeth temporarily invades David’s body in a desperate attempt to stop him drinking offers any hearty laughs, although Ruffalo’s clear aptitude for physical comedy is slightly marred by the general familiarity of the sequence, seen before in countless afterlife comedies.
Elizabeth’s spectral state is nicely mirrored in David’s similarly vaporous existence. He too is merely a ghost of his former self, jobless and practically friendless since his late wife’s sudden death. Elizabeth’s arrival in his life undeniably evokes Dickensian memories of ‘A Christmas Carol’, as she helps him recover his long lost capacity for affection and human kindness. But although David’s masculine struggle for reincarnation becomes ever prominent, Just Like Heaven is unfailingly aimed at the female market, and any of the meatier issues surrounding bereavement, isolation and mortality are promptly resolved with the customary notion that love can bring us back from the beyond. It’s just a shame the film fails to offer a sharper discourse that would make that old Hollywood chestnut easier to digest. Perhaps fittingly, with this undemanding comedy about death, it would seem that Waters has made his most lifeless film yet.
Michael Blyth
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