P.S. I LOVE YOU [PG-13]

Fresh off his stint as the ripped King Leonidas in 300, Gerard Butler sheds his armor in favor of amor and jumps feet first into P.S. I Love You, a Richard Gravanese (Freedom Writers) film based on the Cecelia Ahern novel. It sounds like a chick flick, and it is; but it’s also got its moments of comedy and heartbreak, a sympathetic turn from Hilary Swank, and some great supporting work from Kathy Bates and Harry Connick, Jr.

Swank plays Holly Kennedy and Butler plays her husband Gerry Kennedy, a happy-go-lucky Irish charmer who has moved to New York City after meeting and marrying Holly nine years ago when she was an American college girl on a trip to the Emerald Isle. When we first see the pair of them, it’s during a long scene in which the couple fight, trade accusations, scream, storm out, and then throw themselves into one anothers’ arms.

Obviously, they’re madly and passionately in love; that’s what fights like this are all about. In movies and novels, such dustups are also a chance to work in some exposition so that we can learn how Holly is professionally dissatisfied, forever switching jobs, and Gerry is trying to get a limo service up and running. She hates their drab little apartment and worries that their life will never start; “Why can’t I be the cute, carefree Irish guy who sings all the time?” Holly gripes, and the reason for this, of course, is that she’s a control freak. She may think she wants a handsome prince to sort out her life for her, but in truth, she’d probably send him a left hook if he tried.

Her wild anxiety confuses Gerry completely; he doesn’t get her fretfulness, and knows that his wife is driven, even though she has no idea what she’s driving toward. Gently (and as a prelude to feverish make-up sex), he reminds her that their life already has started, and they should enjoy it for what it is.

He has a point, as it turns out: next thing we know, Gerry has died of a brain tumor, and Holly’s mother (Bates) has lent her Irish pub for an evening of drinking and memorializing. It’s a fine Irish wake and it provides a chance for Holly’s man-hunting friend Denise (Lisa Kudrow) to go on the prowl for a man (in a decidedly Samantha-from-Sex-and-the-City style), and for bartender Daniel (Connick) to fall in love with the widow. The fact that Daniel is unable to connect his brain to his mouth or censor himself before he speaks should place his character apart from the pack, but it doesn’t: all these characters speak to one another bluntly, sometimes unkindly, which can be funny at times or, more often, merely awkward.

Actually, the whole film starts off feeling awkward and off-kilter; the performances are strained, the scenes feel overworked and contrived, and even the inevitable confrontation between Holly and a pack of birthday well-wishers who have ventured to her littered, smelly apartment three weeks after the wake doesn’t quite play out as it should. When the movie’s main conceit kicks in at this very moment, it’s hardly welcomed by either the characters or the audience: Gerry has left a series of letters, and surprises, for Holly to help see her through the grieving process. “And don’t even try to figure out how the letters will be delivered,” his tape recorded message warns Holly; “It’s far too brilliant!”

Gerry’s missives arrive in all sorts of ways (in the pocket of his jacket, fresh back from the dry cleaners; via singing telegram) and involve lots of improbable surprises, such as a trip to Ireland for Holly and her gal pals.

But here the film reaches a turning point: after an absurd hookup with a local lad (what is it with Holly and Irish guys?), the film perks up: it’s as though a weight, perhaps the too-artfully imposed weight of grief, has begun to lift, and as Holly and Gerry’s story unfolds in flashback, the real plot (or what should have been the real plot) emerges: the chance meeting of kindred souls, the tentative dance of courtship that ensues, and the discovery of a life together.

Without that middle section suddenly taking wing, the final act would make no sense. As it is, however, the fairy tale the movie turns into – Cinderella without a prince to track her down with a glass slipper in his hand, so she has to take charge of slipper duty herself – feels appropriate, rather than misjudged.

P.S., the last reel seems to shout to us: “This movie ain’t as bad as you feared it would be.”••• –Kilian Melloy

Kilian Melloy reviews media, conducts interviews, and writes commentary for EDGEBoston, where he also serves as Assistant Arts Editor.