“PS I Love You,” review by Susan Granger
While Hilary Swank has won two Oscars for Boys Dont Cry and Million Dollar Baby shes unable to exude femininity. Graceless in The Affair of the Necklace, shes almost as awkward, cavorting in her underwear, in this disappointing melodrama.
Although Hollys (Hilary Swank) marriage to Gerry Kennedy (Gerard Butler), an impetuous Irishman, is fraught with problems, shes stricken with grief when he dies of a brain tumor. Her mother (Kathy Bates), two best friends (Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon) and a blundering bartender (Harry Connick Jr.), try in vain – to comfort her.
Then on her 30th birthday, a celebratory cake, tape recording and letters start arriving from her dead husband who has taken great pains instructing her how to rebuild her life. Hes even arranged for a bittersweet trip to his native Ireland so she can meet his parents, along with a hunky boyhood chum (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).
Screenwriter Richard LaGravenese (The Fisher King, Freedom Writers) collaborated with Steven Rogers to adapt Cecelia Aherns novel and he also directs. Therein lays the problem. All too often, when a screenwriter directs his own project, he loses focus and thats what happens here. As a couple, the Kennedys seem destined for divorce anyway, so why should we care about them or those gimmicky letters, all of which predictably conclude with P.S. I love you?
It wants to be Ghost, but shes no Demi Moore and hes no Patrick Swayze. The only cast members eliciting empathy are Lisa Kudrow (Friends), adorable as a blatant husband-hunter, and Jeffrey Dean Morgan (Greys Anatomy), whose smile could melt any womans heart. On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, P.S. I Love You is a sappy, floundering 4. Drop it in the dead letter office.