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DVD : P.S. I Love YouBrowse or Search and Buy Online our Best Sellers Shopping Sales of DVD and P.S. I Love You. Rating:  - Don't love youI really need to stop watching romantic comedies at 3 a.m. My last gander was the 2007 chick flick P.S. I Love You, starring Oscar winner Hillary Swank and 300 hunk Gerard Butler. Why do I bother? Holly (Swank) and Gerry (Butler) live in a small New York apartment and argue like normal couples, but they truly have a great life and love at heart. When Gerry dies from a brain tumor, Holly struggles with his death despite help from her family and friends. Shortly thereafter, on her 30th birthday, Holly begins to receive predated letters from Gerry. These treasures help her remember the good times, make new experiences, and find herself again. She has had many an out there role, from The Next Karate Kid to Boys Don't Cry, but I wonder what it was that drew Hillary Swank to this role. Holly is by no means a pretty part. For some reason the character dresses like an idiot, and there's a lot of crying and why questions ala Nancy Kerrigan and the whole knee bashing thing. I can see the emotion in the grief and overcoming the death of a loved one, but for personal reasons alone, not from Swank's trying. I don't know what I'd do without my husband. Do I care if Holly gets over Gerry? Not really. She's given plenty of opportunity to do so, and after chance after chance, not only did I not care, but I wanted to smack Holly to her senses. Why Hillary, why? P.S. I Love You was hyped largely as the next big thing after Gerard Butler's success in 300. I understand his not wanting to be typecast, and his work prior to 300 was quite diverse, from Dracula 2000 to The Phantom of the Opera. I just find this film of all the choices, to be so...weird. Some girls may be charmed by all the romance and such, yadda yadda, but otherwise, this is a very unflattering role. His singing is wrong here, and there isn't an Irish actor out there to fill our Irish onscreen Gerry's shoes? Not only is the whole `dead Gerry' and Gerry Butler vibe a little creepy, but he disappears halfway through the film-before the last letter arrives. I don't get it. Butler has one scene before the opening credits, then spends the rest of the film in flashbacks or as figments of Holly's imagination. It's as if the performance technically doesn't exist. Star Trek fans complain if an entire episode is a dream or a big reset button. It's not as if the ghost of Holly's dead husband is really haunting her, that would be worthwhile I think, ala The Ghost and Mrs. Muir. It would have to be funny, not serious, Ghost cornered that. I just don't see the appeal of a film that turned out to be a complete misstep for both leads. Why Gerry why? Not only have the two leads been unfortunately miscast, but the absolutely stunning supporting cast of P.S. I Love You has been completely wasted. Oscar winner Kathy Bates (Misery) receives her token obligatory weepy scenes as Holly's mom Patricia, and Gina Gershon (Bound) and James Marsters (Spike, People! Spike!) disappear from the film with no explanation whatsoever. We get a tacked on reunion with Lisa Kudrow (Friends) and a cop out at Yankee Stadium with Harry Connick, Jr.(Copycat). I found myself more interested in these fine supporting players and their complex relationships, but their trials and troubles are dropped in favor of Holly's obvious and typical story. The eclectic mix has the comedic and dramatic-and heck musical-talent needed, but it's never used by writer Steven Rogers (Hope Floats) and director Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King, Freedom Writers, and The Bridges of Madison County). It's not woeful leads and misused support, however, that undoes P.S. I Love You- it's the whole dang story from author Cecelia Ahem. Maybe the movie took its liberties from the source novel, but I'm certainly not rushing down the street to Borders to get the book, that's for damn sure. The bemoaning of Holly just goes on and on. As I said, grief is something everyone can relate to, but enough with the letters already. They are too obvious and convenient. The first message is on a tape recorder. Why aren't all the others? In this day and age, Gerry couldn't videotape himself and email it to Holly everyday? How is she really expected to get over her dead husband if new information and good memories of him are technically coming from him after death? Gerry and Holly are so poor, but he can plan elaborate bar trips and vacays to Ireland? And all this while dying of a brain tumor over the course of one year? The soul searching of what grief can do to one person is undone by the unrealistic nature of the story's plan. Never mind the horrid soundtrack and all that omigod chick stuff about turning thirty, marriage, divorce, babies, and looks. And after all this, how does Holly get on with her life? By designing shoes! Could you alienate the male audience more? I can't believe guys wrote and directed this. Fans of the cast will tune in for P.S. I Love You, but I don't think it will be a Gerry dream for the ladies or a tour de force for Swank fans. The DVD supposedly has more scenes and interviews with Ahern-something I would normally find interesting, but I don't think its worth the full price of the disc. Unless you are a big chick flick fan, please avoid. Fans of the individual cast are better off finding clips on youtube. Rating:  - Well-done, weepy chick flickP.S. I Love You is a sweet, teary chick flick that I kinda liked in spite of myself. I read the book that this movie was based on a few years ago, and though the movie differed significantly from the book in some key areas, I found myself enjoying it. Here's the skinny: Young Holly is married to Gerry, an Irish musician. The two live in a cramped walk-up apartment in New York, and they are trying to save some money and "make a plan" to start their family. Reality intervenes. Gerry is diagnosed with a brain tumor and passes away. Holly is adrift in grief. Then, on her 30th birthday, a cake and a small tape recorder arrive at her doorstep. It's a message from Gerry. Apparently, Gerry planned these occasional messages to her for the first year after his death. Each message gives Holly an assignment - buy a bedside lamp, go out with her girlfriends, take a vacation, find a better job. The assignments are Gerry's way of making sure that Holly's life goes on without him. (Sweet, no?) I thought that Swank did a good job in this film, making a sometimes inscrutable character likable and warm. Butler was wonderful as Gerry, and there was a fabulous (all too brief) performance by Jeffrey Dean Morgan that practically had me weak in the knees. Harry Connick Jr. played Daniel, Holly's long-suffering friend, pretty well, too. (Oh, and Holly's clothes were really fun! Kudos to the costumer on that one.) To recap - this is not a tour de force. This movie will not change your life or even make you think about it that much. But it will entertain you, and you may have to grab a Kleenex for some of the scenes. Great for a night in with the girls. Rating:  - Far better than I imagined - and Hilary is radiant!I just watched this "On Demand," and was very pleasantly surprised! I'd seen the DVD box in stores for months, and was never moved to rent it; little did I know that I'd end up thinking it was one of the best romantic movies I'd seen in years. I'm a guy who doesn't immediately label a good love story a "chick flick" - ANY kind of movie that is driven by character and plot can hold my interest, and the best ones prompt me to write songs. I just finished one, because certain things about "P.S. I Love You" made me think of my own life. P.S - I've never seen Hilary Swank look so gorgeous. Rating: - Ridiculously predictable, but my macho husband and I enjoyed watchingNo spoilers here + you already have the plot from the spotlight reviews: If you've seen more than say 10 chick flicks in your life, you will see every plot twist and turn coming from a mile away. In fact, you might want to watch this movie purely to test your plot-guessing ability. And there are some amazing "coincidences" at a frequency that only happens in movies. None-the-less, I found this movie worth watching for both the humor and the wisdom (dispensed from beyond the grave and by Holly's no-nonsense mom brilliantly played by Kathy Bates.) It's trite to say this by I laughed and cried. I especially found the "dating like a guy" antics of Holly's golddigging friend, Denise (Lisa Kudrow) hysterial. Holly's friend (Harry Connick, Jr.) who has some sort of "tell you exactly what he thinks without social filters" is also quite funny. I think Swank did a mostly great job of playing the grieving Holly, but I agree with a previous reviewer that the flashback where Swank is playing a giddy, naive college student is over-the-top. In addition, there's beautiful cinematograpy of Ireland (and Irishmen :-). (Although Holly's Irish husband played by Gerald Butler is Scottish and the Irish hunk Jeffrey Dean Morgan is a Seattle native.) I really didn't think my cynical middle-aged martial arts instructor husband would like this chick flick, but he enjoyed it quite a bit. We both thought the movie was better in the second half, but not bad in the first half either. Rating: - bizarre movieI don't even know how to tackle THIS movie. It was like part comedy, romance, and drama all rolled into one. In the beginning a woman and her boyfriend argue over and over again, to the point where you think they're going to split up and go their separate ways. The arguing wouldn't STOP!! Then, once the guy leaves the apartment room, he comes back in with a look of forgiveness on his face, and the woman comes running up to him and hugging him, and everything is all right again. So the first 10 minutes of film were nothing but typical relationship arguing, and then things go back to normal. NOW the weirdness comes in. The boyfriend supposedly dies, but for some reason, nobody was upset about that. None of the friends, or even the girlfriend herself, were nearly as upset as you'd expect. It was at THIS point I was wondering if maybe I was watching a comedy and all that arguing in the beginning was just something not related to the main story in the least bit. At the funeral they played a song for the boyfriend, and it had disturbing lyrics and everyone was singing along to the words, and even laughing while doing so. I was VERY confused. Then one of the friends of the girlfriend kept running up to random men and asking them a few short questions, and if she didn't like the answer, she'd walk away from the men disappointed. This was a good part, though why hit on someone after her friends boyfriend just died? Talk about ignorant. Then, it gets even MORE bizarre. Apparently the boyfriend wrote a series of letters to her girlfriend before he died. Every couple of days (or weeks) a new letter would appear to the girlfriend, and I guess the letters were written as a way for the girlfriend to cope with his death, because the letters would lead the woman to a new (many times daring) adventure, such as going to Ireland and meeting another guy. I just didn't understand who kept sending the letters to the girlfriend if the boyfriend was dead. He obviously knew he was going to die and knew what would be best for his girlfriend as far as happiness and moving on is concerned. So who was sending the letters? Also, the character who played the mom was good because she was very serious all the time, and knew all the right answers. |