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 enlarge | Director: Richard Lagravenese
Actors: Gerard Butler, Hillary Swank, Lisa Kudrow, Gina Gershon, James Marsters
Studio: Warner Bros.
Category: Movie
Buy New: $3.99
Rating:  162 reviews
Sales Rank: 175
Genre: Comedy
Rating: PG-13 (Parental Guidance Suggested)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 127
ASIN: B00190OHD6
Theatrical Release Date: December 21, 2007
Release Date: October 15, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
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| Customer Reviews:
 Wonderful Movie! January 25, 2008
5 out of 7 found this review helpful
Great movie. Wonderful story of not taking things for granted. We all die, but what is important is how we spent our time with those we love. It is also a story of how to carry on after a death. And of course it is also a great story about true love between a husband and wife.
Grab a girlfriend and see this movie! January 23, 2008
6 out of 9 found this review helpful
I will be the first person to admit that this movie is not for everyone. If your taste in movies runs toward "The Bourne Redundancy" or "No Country for Vile Men," this movie might not be for you. On the other hand, if you are a chick who loves her chick flicks, you'd be hard pressed to find a better one. Grab a friend, grab a hanky, and go see this movie!
Hillary Swank does a fabulous job portraying the emotional rollercoaster that our heroine goes through. In fact, there is not a weak link in the bunch. Harry Connick, Jr., Kathy Bates, Gerard Butler, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, Lisa Kudrow--they are all at the top of their game and an absolute pleasure to watch.
And one final plug for the soundtrack. It's full of wonderful and unexpected treasures that were unearthed specifically for this film. Stop by the record shop on the way home from the theater and pick one up. It makes a perfect movie souvenir!
 Overlong, Episodic Look at the Grieving Process Spotlighting an Uncharacteristically Miscast Swank January 23, 2008
11 out of 13 found this review helpful
Grief can be a painfully long process, but does that mean a movie needs to capture that experience in real time? Actually a year elapses in this marathon 126-minute film, but director Richard LaGravenese's episodic treatment is so sluggish that the end didn't come soon enough for me. This is the first of several problems with this 2007 romantic dramedy co-written by LaGravenese and Steven Rogers and actually not the biggest. That dubious distinction belongs to star Hilary Swank as Holly Kennedy, a high-strung Manhattan real estate agent closing in on thirty and married nearly a decade to Gerry, a hunky, free-wheeling Irish musician. Physically angular with a performance pitched between severely pinched and gawkily awkward, Swank lacks the innate malleability to carry off the role. It's the type that Meg Ryan or Sandra Bullock can do in their sleep, but obviously the torch has to be passed. Despite moments of genuine likeability and vulnerability, Swank lets it drop.
The movie opens with a lengthy and extremely contrived marital squabble between Holly and Gerry and then wastes no time in flashing forward months later to Gerry's wake at the Irish bar that Holly's mother runs. Throughout the rest of the movie, Holly grieves by having frequent flashbacks to the happier days with Gerry, that is, when she is not fantasizing about Gerry still being alive. The plot turns on the conceit that he wrote a series of letters before his death that he intends to be delivered to Holly at key moments during her first year without him, and Holly's responses to the letters make up what constitutes the impetus of the storyline. There are some poorly developed turns, but there are some good moments primarily courtesy of an unusually stellar supporting cast starting with Kathy Bates as Holly's straight-shooting mother whose own husband left her in a less tragic manner; Gina Gershon as Sharon, one of Holly's best friends; and Lisa Kudrow as her other friend, the more hedonistic Denise. In fact, Kudrow's crack comedy timing is such a contrast to Swank's tentative, redundant manner that it upsets the balance of the film.
The men fare somewhat better. A genuinely charismatic actor, Gerard Butler plays Gerry with such unfettered joy that it really is a wonder why he is attracted to Holly in the first place. Their "cute" first encounter on an isolated Irish road is painful to watch not because of Gerry's impending doom but because Swank overdoes her impersonation of a naïve college student. As potential paramour Billy, Jeffrey Dean Morgan, an American actor who actually does a better Irish accent than Butler (a Scotsman) lends the necessary smoldering presence, but he is painted too ideally to be that compelling. Harry Connick, Jr., on the other hand, plays a genuinely idiosyncratic suitor, Daniel, a somewhat off-kilter bartender who may have Asperger's Syndrome. It's an oddly discomforting ploy, but at least it's different, and Connick shows he still has a good comedy sense. Rural Ireland certainly looks idyllic thanks to Terry Stacey's cinematography, although I have to say the musical soundtrack comes across as too predictably coy to help complement scenes. I recommend skipping this one for more worthwhile treatments on grieving like Anthony Minghella's Truly Madly Deeply or even Jerry Zucker's Ghost.
Definitely a girl's night out flick! January 16, 2008
2 out of 3 found this review helpful
What a great movie! I couldn't wait to see and it totally delivered on that wait. My husband wishes he didn't go with me though. Because it made me cry several times throughout the movie. I wasn't sure I would have liked Hillary Swank beside Gerard Butler, but it worked. And I was glad Gerard got to sing again!! He's got a great voice and I've listened to him over and over again from "Phantom of the Opera". I loved the scenery in it also. It was breath taking! When is Gerard going to be nominated for an award for his great acting!! And you gotta love the accent.
Better then the book January 13, 2008
7 out of 8 found this review helpful
I found the book to be slow and depressing, and to me the movie was the complete opposite! Seeing the previews I was excited to see Gerard Butler and Jeffrey Dean Morgan and that alone almost sold me. But I thought maybe if they improved on it and made it more about...picking yourself back up then the book did that I would enjoy it more. I was right thankfully! I'll also say that I'm a big fan of movies like the notebook and a walk to remember, and this seemed to fall into the same caliber of movie for me.
It really got you to understand the main characters' relationship and also kept the main elements of the book in my opinion. I usually don't really like Hilary Swank but she was charming and engaging(though, really shouldn't sing along with Judy Garland, that was painful). My only complaint was that I cried so much it gave me a headache, though, it would redeem itself by giving you a good laugh immediately following a really sad part. So I deducted just one star because by the end, I was mentally BEGGING them not to go thru another letter, I didn't think my poor tear ducts could handle it. I would also say, though I considered dragging my boyfriend(who apparently had no clue about the premise to begin with and would have been going in blindly!) it was much better to go with my best friend who had also read the book(though she said I cried too much). Its a chick flick in my opinion, though I have heard other guys didn't mind it. =) I would happily recommend it as a really fun movie that I absolutely loved. Bring lots of tissue!
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