Film Review: P.S. I Love You (2007)

Grade: D

Sometimes, it's not enough to make a grown man get choked up in the middle of the night. Your movie can still suck. It's not enough to cause a phone call expressing my undying love to my girlfriend. Your movie can still be unintelligent. Sparking emotions is usually a clear sign for an effective movie that does what it set out to do. But this is a cheap spectacle, using death and love in the same sentence, the same gimic for a tearjerker gone 90 minutes too long.

There is almost nothing good I can say about this movie. It's an unconvincing film that shows Hillary Swank should stick to Oscar dramas, Lisa Kudrow should stick to television, and Gina Gershon should stick to the 90s. It's told from a female's perspective and it shows because no guy I know can fully relate to any of the three men in the movie. Gerard Butler is charming, no doubt, but can someone be too perfect? Yes and its a no-no in romantic comedies. Male or female. Dead or alive. That's why John Cusack works. Jeffrey Dean Morgan (aka Denny from Grey's Anatomy) serves as the exotic European further proving why British men are better lovers. Problem is his connection to the film is mere ridiculousness. Why does a film try to be realistic and at the same time, hold onto the fantastical chick flick motifs? And Harry Connick Jr. is your bumbling American who plays the best friend who can't get some. And my review of him? Stick to singing. We never care about him, and he remains in the loser fold, never endearing himself to the audience. Leave this role to John Cusack.

And as previously noted, it's too long, running a whole 2 hrs and 10 minutes. That's a mere sitcom away from Batman Begins. That's for a movie that runs on one premise -- getting over a perfect man who died too early in life and in the film -- before the opening credits. I can see why respected actors signed up for P.S. I Love You. It's a new idea for the overdone chick flick genre. It's emotional. And it's got Gerard Butler half naked and Denny fully naked. So I guess it's not surprising that I left this movie feeling cheap, feeling spent and used...with my emotions on the carpet floor, wasted.