JUST LIKE HEAVEN

4/5
stars mark ruffalo, reese witherspoon, jon heder

i was supposed to go see this film at the cinemas, but due to constant timetable clashes and just general laziness i never got round to it. so when it came out on dvd last week i decided to hire it. after "suddenly 30" i was a fan of mark ruffalo, and i do like reese witherspoon in small doses.

if you hadn't already gathered, the film is about a elizabeth (witherspoon), a young doctor who spends so much time at work that she doesn't realise her social life has been put on hold - not until she's in a car accident that renders her once perky body into nothing more than a weightless spirit.

in comes dave (ruffalo), a bummy kind of guy who moves into elizabeth's old apartment. after the initial encounter with the 'spirit', dave sets out to find out what happened to her and where she came from, and from then orwards the film takes some nice turns and funny experiences that eventually lead to the climax.

i had read a little about this film, and a lot of critics said this film was like a modern(er) day version of Ghost (with that peadophile guy from Donnie Darko) but i fail to see how they even make that comparison. no one was murdered, there was no conspiracy, nor was there any love triangle. ba-bum, sorry, no dice.

instead the film, much like all good romantic comedies mixes the perfect amount of light-hearted cheese, genuine funny bits, great line of supporting characters, and the tender ending where you just can't help by go, "Awwww!". mark ruffalo's performance is awesome; he looks genuinely disoriented, much like the persona of his character. reese witherspoon, while letting some of her "legally blonde" through, was a character which was hard to dislike. and as mentioned earlier, supporting cast provided a believable, yet irreverntly humours backdrop for the story.

i give this film 4/5 because it was one of those films that got more than a "Awwww!" from me. it made me think more about the nature of life and love and all that, and how sometimes when unexpected shit happens, you just have to go with it. if you remember i wrote an article on the "romantic comedy formula", and therefore its not that hard to know where things will end in such films.

but even with the said, the conclusion isn't what really matters - its how the characters that get there that counts.

-LOki