P.S. I Love You

2/4

Starring: Hilary Swank, Gerard Butler, Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon, Kathy Bates, Harry Connick, Jr., Jeffrey Dean Morgan

Rated PG-13 for Sexual References and Brief Nudity

There is a wide margin between what "P.S. I Love You" wants to be, and what it actually is.  The film wants to be a bittersweet romantic comedy about grief and moving on.  What it is is a wildly uneven mess of a movie with plastic characters, unsure direction and mediocre acting (save for one exception).

Holly Kennedy (Swank) is a neurotic New Yorker who can't find a job that she likes.  Her loving husband Gerry (Butler) takes the brunt of her frustration, but he loves her like no other (why is never made clear).  Sadly, Gerry dies of a brain tumor and Holly is naturally devastated.  But to her surprise, he has left her a series of letters to get her back in the world.

With such a strong production team, it's kind of a shock to find a film this bad.  Hilary Swank is an amazing actress, but here, she's just coasting through and it shows.  Holly is a whiny, neurotic bitch, and it's only her smile that makes us like her.  Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon play her friends, but neither one of them has much screen time.  Kathy Bates is good, but again, her screen time is limited.  Jeffrey Dean Morgan is flat (his screen time is limited as well...methinks this is a roadblock that Richard LaGravanese and Steven Rogers were unable to overcome when adapting a 500+ page book into an overly long 2 hour film).

The lone exception to the mediocre acting is Gerard Butler.  Butler has always been a good actor, but here, he's fantastic.  The film is crap except for when he's on screen (he appears in flashbacks and dream sequences).  It stuns me to say that a movie this bad is worthy of Oscars, but Gerard Butler should have gotten an Oscar nod for his performance here.  He totally gets Gerry and what Gerry needs to be.

Richard LaGravanese is the main person to blame for the failure of this movie.  His script is shallow, there are far too many characters (Jeffrey Dean Morgan's character is unnecessary and wasn't in the book) and he's not skilled at manipulation, which is key for a movie like this to be a success.

Skip the movie.  Watch the trailer instead.  You get to see Butler at his best and what the movie was intended to be.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Desert Flower

2/4 Starring: Liya Kebede, Sally Hawkins, Timothy Spall, Juliet Stevenson Rated R for Some Violent Content, A Scene of Sexuality and Language The problem with "Desert Flower" is not that Waris Dirie's story isn't suited for the cinematic treatment or that the actress playing her isn't acceptable.  The problem is that director Sherry Hormann doesn't do a good job of telling it.  This is a poorly focused film that can't decide what it wants to be about or what it wants to say. As is the case with many a true story, the life of Waris Dirie is too amazing to be made up by a Hollywood screenwriter.  This woman fled an arranged marriage as a child, spent years as a servant to a Somali diplomat in England, survived on the streets, and was discovered by a fashion photographer while working as a janitor.  Then she became a supermodel and UN Ambassador in the fight against female genital mutilation. Waris experienced a lot in her life.  Telling it all in a...
Read more

The Road

3.5/4 Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Kodi Smit-McPhee, Charlize Theron Rated R for Some Violence, Disturbing Images and Language "The Road" has to be the most downbeat, depressing and cynical movie I've ever seen.  That's not meant as a criticism, but a fact.  This is a tough movie to get through, but not a chore.  Those who venture in will find their time well spent, albeit not in a necessarily pleasant way.  Then again, if a movie is based off a novel by Cormac McCarthy, "pleasant" isn't a word one would hope to be used to describe it. The film takes place after the world has ended.  How it happened is not explained because it doesn't matter.  But any hope of the Earth recovering from what happened has long since gone.  A man (Mortensen) and his son (Smit-McPhee) are travelling together, trying to "get to the coast."  There are few people left, although considering what many are doing with the goal of survival, that's a good thing...
Read more

My Left Foot

 2/4 Starring: Daniel Day-Lewis, Brenda Fricker, Ray McAnally, Fiona Shaw, Alison Whelan Rated R (probably for Language and Brief Violence) "My Left Foot" feels like one of those movies designed to win Oscars and nothing else.  In fact, it did win two Oscars for the immortal Daniel Day-Lewis and Brenda Fricker, but apart from their strong work, there's not much else to remember about this movie.  It's well-acted, but all in all it's pretty dull. Christy Brown (Day-Lewis) is getting recognized for his work in order to raise money for the disabled.  Despite being a talented artist and writer, Christy is not the ideal candidate for the job.  He's an alcoholic jerk who makes no secret of his lust for women nor is he above using his disability to manipulate people into doing what he wants.  Interspersed with his attempts to seduce a woman tasked with looking after him while he awaits his entrance are vignettes from his childhood.  Most notably how his mothe...
Read more