When I saw the trailer for "P.S. I Love You" a few weeks back, I thought ‘eh, I think I’ll skip it.’ A romantic comedy about a widow receiving letters from her dead husband doesn’t really tickle my fancy.
Fortunately, James Marsters, my fangirl crush of nine years, does. He plays the business partner and friend of Gerry. He’s a secondary character in this movie, but hey, I’ll take what I can get.
I spotted a few glimpses of his lovely face in the trailer and changed my mind to ‘this is a must see.’ Granted I saw and reviewed a few movies before I finally watched "P.S. I Love You," but I knew I would get to it eventually.
Hilary Swank portrays the widowed Holly Kennedy who just lost her husband (Gerald Butler) of 10 years to a brain tumor.
After spending three weeks in apartment solitude, Holly’s friends come to celebrate her birthday. With the celebration comes a cake from the deceased husband Gerry, along with a tape-recorded message telling her that each month she would be getting letters from him encouraging her to do things. Those things include buying a lamp so she stops stubbing her toe in the bedroom; getting a new dress; and singing karaoke again after her face smashing debut. Literally.
Over the seasons, she clings to the letters like a vise and doesn’t see a potential love match in bartender Daniel (Harry Connick Jr.).
Now, I know Swank is a great actress. She did win two Academy Awards, after all for her dramatic performances in "Boys Don’t Cry" (1999) and "Million Dollar Baby" (2005). But as the main character in a romantic dramedy? Not so much.
I think this role would be best suited for a Drew Barrymore, a Sarah Michelle Gellar, or any other actress that has chemistry with Butler. There really wasn’t much chemistry between the husband and wife, but they are both good looking. So, yeah for that?
The best parts of the movie are the first karaoke scene, and the secondary characters. Those include James Marsters and Lisa Kudrow. She plays the single, wisecracking, man-crazy best friend of Holly. Oh, and I can’t forget the beautiful scenes of Ireland. Such a lovely place, that Ireland.
"P.S. I Love You" is the type of movie you can see with your family (the female members) or your gal-friends. Or you could even wait until the DVD release, or if you really want to rebel, not at all.
However, I don’t think this movie deserved the extremely harsh reviews that it got. I mean, any movie that features Ireland, James Marsters, Gerald Butler and Jeffrey Dean Morgan cannot be all that bad. Eye-candy can make any movie better, in my humble opinion. Still, this film is average at best.
I gave this film a C-.
Dedra Cordle is a Messenger staff writer.
