Dir. Richard LaGravenese, US, 2007, 126 mins
Cast: Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Kathy Bates, Lisa Kudrow
Review by Carol Allen
Holly (Swank) has a passionate if occasionally stormy marriage to charming and funny Irishman Gerry (Butler). When Gerry is taken ill and dies, Holly is understandably devastated. But Gerry has thought ahead. Before he died, he wrote Holly a series of letters that turn up periodically to guide her through the various stages of her grief towards recovery and a new life, the first one arriving on her 30th birthday. Each one ends with "PS I Love You". It is a very romantic and somewhat contrived treatment of love, loss, grief and healing but once you accept the premise and the inevitable flashbacks, the film holds your attention and is well and clearly structured.
The effective pre title sequence establishes the marriage between Holly and Gerry very well, though Gerry thereafter only seen in flashback never again seems very substantial. Butler has a nice Irish charm, but in this he rather lacks the charisma and some of the sex appeal he's shown in previous movies. Swank is good as Holly, but the script never allows her to really get to grips with the reality of her grief. It's all a bit prettified. For example, in a scene where her family and friends turn up to give her a surprise 30th birthday party, the grief stricken Holly, who hasn't washed or been out of the apartment for days, is supposed to be smelly and unkempt. She in fact looks fresh as a dais,y wearing Gerry's neatly ironed shirt with perfect makeup and her hair merely becomingly dishevelled. Meanwhile, the supposedly cramped and untidy Brooklyn apartment, about which Holly is always complaining, looks like a very nicely decorated and furnished film set of a bijou residence. Swank also starred in director LaGravenese's previous film Freedom Writers, which suffered from a similar misty eyed unreality.
On the plus side though Kudrow, who has a habit of stealing movies with her supporting performances, makes a strong impression as Holly's over picky, romance seeking friend, making some nice comic observations on the contemporary singles scene, and Bates also gives the film a bit of grounded reality as Holly's protective mother Patricia, who runs an Irish pub in Brooklyn. The mother/daughter relationship is convincing, as is Holly's friendship with Harry Connick Jnr. as Patricia's awkward but sympathetic barman Daniel. In the course of the story, one of Gerry's letters takes Holly back to their joint ancestral roots in Ireland and a very idealised American view of the Emerald Isle it is, while the ending ties up all the loose ends somewhat over neatly. While suffering from too much Hollywood gloss and going a bit heavy on the glories of Irish culture and whisky, the film still has a certain charm and those who like their romance with a few tears as well should find it a pleasant night out at the pictures.
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