Tuesday, May 06, 2008

P.S. I Love You

P.S. I Love You is everything I generally hate in a movie: it's overly sentimental, sometimes trite, mostly predictable and too often superficial.

But God help me, for some reason I liked this movie.

Hillary Swank's character, Holly, spends most of her adult life focused on the future. She's ambitious, and never very content with her current standing in life. Although a nice enough person, Holly's discontent causes her to be unhappy with her life, and creates some mild tension with her more relaxed, have-fun-with-life husband, Gerry (played by Gerard Butler).

Early in the film Gerry dies, leaving uptight Holly alone to become even unhappier, and depressed. Once fixated too much on the future to be happy, Holly is now so obsessed with memories of the past that she can't function effectively.

Until she receives Gerry's postmortem gift.


Prior to his death from cancer, Gerry arranged for a series of letters to be delivered to Holly. Each letter provides fun and memorial insights into life, designed to teach Holly to enjoy the moment. To pay less attention to the future, and to leave the past behind. Gerry helps Holly understand that it's only in the moment that one can be truly happy, and it's on that foundation that a genuine and meaningful life can be lived.



It's a lesson more folks should pay attention to.

4 comments:

Buzzardbilly said...

I didn't read the whole review because I thought I'd like to see this movie. By the time I got to you "god help me" portion, I'd decided I'll watch it soon and then read the review.

All Click said...

Dude, if I find your testicles i'll send them along to you.

Buzzardbilly said...

I thought this was supposed to be a romantic comedy. It took three sittings and damned near half a box of Kleenex to get through this one. It was a story that kept me coming back for times two and three to finish it (if a movie makes me cry too much, I'm not entertained and give myself a break).

27 Dresses, on the other hand, made me laugh without the cry.

Still your review of PS I Love You is spot on.

Brendan said...

I'll have to watch this one eventually just for the Oirishness.