After The Apocalypse Review
by Harvey S. Karten (harveycritic AT cs DOT com)October 12th, 2004
p.s.
Reviewed by Harvey S. Karten
Newmarket Films
Grade: B+
Directed by: Dylan Kidd
Written by: Helen Schulman, Dylan Kidd, novel by Helen
Schulman
Cast: Laura Linney, Topher Grace, Gabriel Byrne, marcia Gay Harden, Paul Rudd, Lois Smith
Screened at: Review 1, NYC, 9/27/04
"P.s." may not be groundbreaking, but as romantic comedy the pic is more authentic, more sincere, more believable than anything of that genre that has ever featured Hugh Grant or Julia Roberts. The key to its charm is a performance by the terminally likable Laura Linney, an actress who is as comfortable on the legitimate stage ("Sight Unseen") as in the movies ("Mystic River," "Love Actually"). Directed and co-written by Dylan Kidd, whose "Roger Dodger," a portrait of a misanthrope who fancies himself a lady-killer and was one of my five faves in 2002, "p.s." represents a change of direction for Kidd–unless you count sex-addict Peter Harrington (Gabriel Byrne) as reprehensible a guy as the titled Roger.
Adapating a story by co-scripter Helen Schulman, Kidd unfolds a nicely-told romantic comedy-drama in and around Columbia University, an Ivy League institution whose Fine Arts department appears to exist largely for the pleasure of student applicants like F. Scott Feinstadt (Topher Grace).
"P.s." is part ghost story in that F. Scott–whose uses the name to impress the admissions director at Columbia but whose friends call him Fran–possesses the same name as a boyfriend that dean Louise Harrington (Laura Linney) enjoyed in high school who was "stolen" from her by her best friend Missy (Marcia Gay Harden) and who was killed in a car crash twenty years earlier. Spookily enough, Fran not only has the same name but a similar appearance and voice and what's more he is, like the late boyfriend, a painter. His application to Columbia forces Louise to come to grips with her past and to try to avoid mistakes she is prone to repeat. In short, unlike most other romantic films in which obstacles are regularly put forth by society to prevent two lovers from making a commitment, Louise has become her own worst enemy, the person who sets up the obstacles to her fulfillment.
Among the revelations made is a confession (for no obvious reason) by Louise's ex-husband Peter (Gabriel Byrne) that he is a sex addict who has had one hundred affairs with women and ten with men, including one with Louise's own drug-addicted brother, Sam (Paul Rudd).
The story is well-written, its humor coming from understatements, the best of which is a line by student F. Scott to his mother, whom he calls to say that the interview "went pretty well...I was in and out in minutes." (This after Louise seduces the lad in her apartment within a hour of meeting him in her office.)
The one disappointment is a strange performance by Marcia Gay Harden in the role of Missy, the woman who had stolen by late F. Scott from Louise back in high school. Her drinking and especially her cynical conversation are so beyond the pale that we wonder how any man could have related to her for ten
minutes.
Not Yet Rated. 105 minutes © Harvey Karten
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