Just Like Heaven

Okay okay okay. I know I watch a lot of trash. Forgive me! There is a part of my heart that loves the cheesiest crap that Hollywood can deliver. Just Like Heaven, well, it was cheesy, no doubt about it. But was it trashy? Not really. It was more like a pleasant stroll in a rose garden or a lovely cup of earl-grey tea. Sweet, but somewhat unaffecting. Why did it not really affect me? Probably because I didn't buy the chemistry.

I notice a trend in some of these romantic comedies (well, in this movie, and also in The Proposal and I suppose in Suddenly 30). You have the over-achieving career-woman who works so much that they've not left any space for a personal life. Then you have the sweet, down-to-earth guy who the girl has overlooked until some kind of personal crisis delivers him to her. The girl is all righteous, self-centred and bossy and the guy just kind of puts up with it dopelybecause he has always loved her.

This is my problem with a lot of these films in this kind of post-feminist(?) film-production landscape. The leading female, as an extreme example of the single American career-woman, seems to be more of a caricature than a character. She works too hard, other people are perhaps a little afraid of her, she eats chinese take-away alone at home etc. This is the reason why I think this movie failed; Reese Witherspoon's character was based a little too completely on a stereotype and I couldn't really learn anything about her apart from the fact that she worked 20 hours a day as a doctor and drank too much coffee. When she did come into Mark Ruffalo's life (sorry I can't remember the character's name, just the actor's), she swiftly proceeded to lash out with the pussy-whip, forbidding him to talk to his next door neighbour because she answered the door wearing a crop-top, and totally ruining his night out when he simply tried to have a whisky with his friend at the pub. Geez. IF SHE WAS THAT BAD AS A GHOST (which she was at that point in the movie) HOW BAD WOULD SHE BE IN REAL LIFE? I couldn't even really believe that they were in love.

If you didn't really care or notice chemistry between characters, then this movie would be fine, but the more I think about it, the less convincing they were. If you can suspend criticism and belief for about 90 minutes though, it was all rather pleasant. Your heart-strings will be manipulated in the usual ways and you can vicariously experience elements of their newly found love for each other. If you find it hard to surrender your intellect in such films, and don't find enjoyment in the escapist ride on a side-show alley ride of romantic emotions, then you would find watching this film to be a rather pointless exercise as it makes no meaningful statement about men, women or humankind.

Can I just add as an aside though, I THINK I LOVE MARK RUFFALO.


He's a vegetarian.