P.S. I Love You

By Matthew Rodgers

Adapting best selling novels from page to screen is risky business; Joe Wright managed the perfect Adaptation last year from Ian Mckewan’s period pulp, and the early contender for film of the year, No Country for Old Men has been brilliantly realised by The Coen Brothers, but Richard LaGravenese’s film based on Cecilia Ahern book P.S. I Love You is an example of how to get it so utterly and spectacularly wrong that you would question whether anyone involved read the source, script, or even the amount on their pay cheque. The first film seen this year is also already a saccharine coated contender for worse film of the year.

Apparently you can tell whether a book is going to be a page-turner from the opening few paragraphs, well substitute that for opening scene in this case and you will have a clear idea of the pain which you are set to endure. Just prior to his untimely demise Gerry (Gerard Butler) is having an argument with Holly (Hilary Swank) about not much in particular. What is meant to show the compatibility of these two characters as they exchange light-hearted banter transpires as one of the most awkwardly embarrassing scenes you will bear witness to, it goes on forever and gives no weight to them as a couple, something that is a must for what follows. Left struggling to mourn his death, Holly is given a new purpose in life when she begins to receive letters from the grave as Gerry guides her on a path to recovery.

The main footnote for P.S. I Love You concerns the central performances; Is this really the man who led the army of 300 so impressively? Butler sports one of the worst accents since Brad Pitt’s “oirish” from The Devil’s Own and is so inept that had the rest of the cast not been so uniformly bad then he may not have gotten off so lightly. Kathy Bates, Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon and the man who would be Spike, James Marsters are all so laughably bad as the family collective that individual criticism becomes pointless. They all pale in comparison to Hilary Swank, who is always watchable, even in guff such as Freedom Writers, but as a two-times Oscar winner she cannot save what could have been (so I’m told) a fantastic weepy akin to that Friday night favourite The Notebook with her toothy, sickly earnestness. Nevermind the hankies, pass me the sick bucket.