P.S. I Love You Review

The only reason I watched this movie is because I got free HBO for a year and figured I might as well check it out.  I'm usually not into cheesy romance and there are VERY FEW cheesy romances movies that I like.  A cheesy romance only works for me if it has a certain quality about it... this movie did not have that quality.  P.S. I Love You was just too cheesy for me.

The story goes that Holly just lost her husband to a brain tumor.  She's a planner, she can't do anything without a plan, so even though she had warning that he was dying, she just can't move on with her life.  Lucky for her, her husband has this all figured out already.  This time HE made the plans!  He set up a series of letters and messages to come to her at specific times.  The letters tell her to do things and not question any of it.  She goes along with it at first out of excitement but them eventually because she wants to see what the lesson is.  

What I didn't like, right of the bat, was that he was there all the time.  I guess they tried to make it like ghosts where she was supposed to be sensing him around her and feeling him there.  But I found this to be overly corny.  It would have been better without these scenes were she was imaging him there or talking to him.  There were flashbacks throughout the movie of their relationship, which were sometimes longer than I would have liked and made the movie longer than it needed to be.

What I did like was the concept.  Imagine if someone did this for you when they knew they were dying.  Would you find it weird?  Would you find it depressing?  Or would you welcome the last chance to be close to your loved one?  I think it would be sad but exciting at the same time.

Ultimately though, the only reason I kept watching was to find out how it ended.  Hilary Swank just didn't portray sad to me.  She seemed more angry or confused with her husband than sad.  Also, her mom was WAY too mean about the letters and saying she should just give it up.  I liked Lisa Kudrow's character as well as Hilary's other friends in the movie.

If you are wondering what type of movies make me sad, for comparison sake, What Dreams May Come is more of the type of movie that really gets to me - because the characters have to go through extreme circumstances for love.  There really wasn't anything grand or extreme about P.S. I Love You to make me sad or touched in anyway.  Perhaps I shouldn't bother to watch The Notebook either.