Talk about "Just Like Heaven" here:
Review by: Breanne Derby
Plot Summary
Grieving widower David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo) has just begun renting a new apartment. It's furnished, it's comfortable, and it has a great view, but there's one problem, the view is not all it comes with. As David continues to live in the apartment and gets comfortable with the things, he begins seeing an apparition of the previous owner, young, beautiful Elizabeth Masterson (Reese Witherspoon), who had been in a terrible accident three months before. Try as he might to rid himself of her, Elizabeth is content on staying in her apartment with her things. David is not about to abandon his apartment that he is renting and paying for, so the two of them must learn to coincide.
Review
I have lots of praise for Just Like Heaven. Most of the acting was superb, and the jokes humorous. In a few scenes Ruffalo's lines were a bit awkward and choppy, but that only occurred once or twice throughout the duration of the film. Fortunately the storyline was great, the special effects were lovely, and it was enjoyable to watch, which made up for the occasional awkward sentence.
It was nice to see this interesting take on a chick-flick. Generally all "romantic comedy" films fall into the same old shtick because they're built on the formulaic boy meets girl; boy and girl fall in love; some kind of conflict separates boy and girl; boy and girl work through conflict and live happily ever after. This vague plot outline has been recycled thousands of times for film after film; many of them even possessing similar conflicts to one another. Fortunately, Just Like Heaven had a very interesting conflict, which made up for the fact that it was undoubtedly a chick-flick.
The special effects were nicely done, especially when Elizabeth and David touched, or when
Elizabeth was trying to interact with objects from the real world, but one thing I was disappointed with was the film's consistency. Elizabeth couldn't grab the phone, and she could walk right through walls and windows, but she could sit in David's car, and she could lie on the bed and the coffee table in spite of the fact that early on in the film she walked through her dining room table without realizing it. She was also able to cast a shadow, which I guess would have had to be something else only David could see. The effects themselves were well done, and they weren't stressed to the point where it was the effects that were doing the acting instead of the actors, but the logic behind what Elizabeth could and could not interact with was flawed.
One thing I noticed throughout the film (for reasons explained later) was the interesting mix of songs chosen for its soundtrack. I enjoyed the variety, ranging from a Temptations cover, to a song by Bowling For Soup, and, of course, Just Like Heaven by The Cure.
Conclusion
In all honesty, I went to this film purely because of its title. I am a Cure fan, and I was hoping to hear the song in the film (and I did!). This is also not the first film I have gone to because I expected a song to be in it. The other time I went to see something because of a song I was horribly disappointed because not only was it a lousy movie, the song I had wanted to hear wasn't even in it. Fortunately, this time my irrational reason for seeing Just Like Heaven paid off. Not only did they play the Cure song at the end during the credits (which I always watch all the way through, sorry, no Easter egg), the film itself was pretty good. Usually I'm not one for those "romantic comedy" films (more accurately dubbed "chick flicks") but I really did like this one. The characters were likable, the storyline was not necessarily believable but easy to get involved in, and all in all I enjoyed it. There were a few things that could have been improved, but overall Just Like Heaven was a good film, and I would recommend it.
