Running time: 95 minutes
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Mark Ruffalo, Donal Logue, Jon Heder
Rating 7 out of 10
Ghosts are meant to be scary apparitions in white sheets not pretty blondes in designer pantsuits. Horror films would hardly induce a chill if they were inhabited by specters that looked like Elizabeth Masterson (Reese Witherspoon). But this isn't a horror flick, this is a romantic comedy where the only thing that's important is introducing enough hurdles to prevent the two lovers from uniting until the final reel. Making one a spirit is certainly an effective method.
Based on Marc Levy's novel If Only It Were True, Just Like Heaven has obvious parallels with Ghost in that the power of love has to contest with the power of the supernatural, but thankfully the schmaltz has been replaced by humour. Director Mark Waters, who did a good job turning potentially forgettable fluff into something more with Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, has done the same here. Just Like Heaven, buoyed by some genuinely funny scenes and tender moments between Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, is a charming delight.
Ruffalo plays landscape architect David Abbot who has slipped into a self-pitying malaise since the death of his wife two years ago. He's content to hole up on a couch with a beer, only occasionally foraying out to meet up with his psychiatrist pal Jack (Donal Logue).
Shortly after moving into a swanky San Francisco apartment, he is visited by the ghostly specter of Elizabeth, the apartment's previous occupant. Indignant at the sight of the slovenly intruder - "You can't live here, because I live here" - she starts chastising David, until he alerts her to the fact that being a ghost, she's far from perfect herself.
Uncertain of her true identity, the two pair up to find out who she is and what happened to her to make it possible for her to walk through walls. What they discover is that before the car accident that rendered her in her present state, she was a workaholic physician with few friends and no love life. "It was like I was a ghost before I was dead," Lizzie sighs.
Lizzie is visible only to David, leading to many of the film's more amusing scenes, including one involving her helping David perform an operation on a dying man. Without divulging too much, there are elements of the story tht are probably medically unsound, but hey this is the movies. And the least said about a suggested necrophilous version of Sleeping Beauty the better, suffice to say when it comes to fairy tale endings, this has a doozy.
Kevin Murphy
Based on Marc Levy's novel If Only It Were True, Just Like Heaven has obvious parallels with Ghost in that the power of love has to contest with the power of the supernatural, but thankfully the schmaltz has been replaced by humour. Director Mark Waters, who did a good job turning potentially forgettable fluff into something more with Mean Girls and Freaky Friday, has done the same here. Just Like Heaven, buoyed by some genuinely funny scenes and tender moments between Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, is a charming delight.
Ruffalo plays landscape architect David Abbot who has slipped into a self-pitying malaise since the death of his wife two years ago. He's content to hole up on a couch with a beer, only occasionally foraying out to meet up with his psychiatrist pal Jack (Donal Logue).
Shortly after moving into a swanky San Francisco apartment, he is visited by the ghostly specter of Elizabeth, the apartment's previous occupant. Indignant at the sight of the slovenly intruder - "You can't live here, because I live here" - she starts chastising David, until he alerts her to the fact that being a ghost, she's far from perfect herself.
Uncertain of her true identity, the two pair up to find out who she is and what happened to her to make it possible for her to walk through walls. What they discover is that before the car accident that rendered her in her present state, she was a workaholic physician with few friends and no love life. "It was like I was a ghost before I was dead," Lizzie sighs.
Lizzie is visible only to David, leading to many of the film's more amusing scenes, including one involving her helping David perform an operation on a dying man. Without divulging too much, there are elements of the story tht are probably medically unsound, but hey this is the movies. And the least said about a suggested necrophilous version of Sleeping Beauty the better, suffice to say when it comes to fairy tale endings, this has a doozy.
Kevin Murphy
