P.S. (2004)
Although by no means a perfect romantic
comedy, "P.S." still has enough humor and sweetness
as well as reality within it to make it worth watching.
By far the most engaging thing about
the film is Laura Linney. Gorgeous, talented and daring,
Linney is one of the best actresses to emerge into
the American mainstream over the past few years. Here
she sparks quite nice chemistry almost immediately
with a co-star quite a few years her junior, Topher
Grace, best known for his work as Eric Foreman on
TV's "That 70's Show." A nice angle in the script
has Linney and Grace almost immediately hopping in
the sack upon meeting and this honest and fresh approach
to a romantic comedy leads us into new territory for
the genre. This isn't as much about the two falling
in love (except of course that it is) as it is about
them trying to deal with that love and lust.
But for all of Linney's talent and
all of Grace's goofy charm, "P.S." becomes more and
more difficult to enjoy. Instead of delving into the
problems of the age difference between the two, we
have to deal with a "reincarnation" story that almost
doesn't work and the appearance of Marcia Gay Harden
(who really needs to go on Atkins) as a rival for
Grace's attention. Even more distracting and dull
is Gabriel Byrne as Linney's ex-husband (who eventually
comes clean about his wandering eye) and Paul Rudd
as Linney's loser brother. All of these desperate
angles are used only to show us how bored, lonely
and indifferent Linney's middle-aged woman has become
over the years. Then they're used to show she has
grown when she forgives them their trespasses. It's
pretty typical stuff. And extremely dull. It's much
more interesting when Linney is out in public with
Grace. Here things seem like they might bubble with
dramatic tension. Sadly, they never do.
You see, Linney, a college art professor,
falls for Grace, a young painter (who never has a
speck of paint on his face or hands or clothes) because
he is the spitting image of her high school sweetheart
who died very young in a car accident. The trouble
is, there's no flashbacks here and nothing to really
explain what happened in the past (until Harden shows
up anyway) to help us understand why Linney is so
mesmerized by this revelation. Linney works the script
to show her character as lost and in need of love
but this backstory of reincarnation (a word that is
never used in the film) doesn't truly help us to understand
how she must deal with the past in order to get going
toward the future. Well, it's eventually used to do
that but it barely works as a device.
One of the most problematic scenes
in the film finds Linney delivering a long soliloquy
about what Grace's future might be if he didn't become
a success as a painter and instead became a used car
salesman. There's a suggestion that this is what might
have become of Linney's long departed love had he
lived past his teenage years but the point is so lost
out in the cosmos that we just don't truly understand
it properly. That Grace's young man would play along
for so long with Linney as she goes off on this long
tangent, instead of trying to initiate sex with her,
or change the subject, is also pretty unbelievable.
"P.S." also has a problem in that
it is getting some notice as the same time as Nicole
Kidman's film "Birth." In that film, Kidman plays
a widow pursued by a pre-pubescent boy who claims
to be the reincarnation of her late husband. The problem
with that film (although I haven't seen it) seems
to be that the boy is too young to work feasibly as
a relatable partner in a realistic romantic story.
(It will be interesting to see how daring the film
is). The problem here is that Grace is too old to
give this story any edge. Sure he has chemistry with
Linney but their May/December relationship hardly
seems to be outrageous or shocking by modern standards.
Now if it was Frankie Munoz or Ryan Pinkerton playing
the role, that might be an edgy film.
Note:
Based on the novel by Helen Schulman.
The soundtrack is filled with bad,
puffy, alt-pop songs by female singers.
Grace's supposed paintings, which
are all homoerotic in one way or another it seemed
to me, are by Bryan LaBoeuf.
One of six films with this title
according to The Internet Movie Database.
Viewed in October 2004 as a part
of the Austin Film Festival at the Paramount Theater.
