Just Like Heaven

Just Like Heaven (Director: Mark Waters)

Waters hit the scene with The House of Yes, and then did Head Over Heels. His last two movies have been huge, the Lindsay Lohan pics Freaky Friday and Mean Girls. Based on the novel If Only It Were True by Marc Levy, the screenplay is from "Rescue Me" scribe and comedy vet Peter Tolan and high-concept matron Leslie Dixon (Pay It Forward, Mrs. Doubtfire, Look Who's Talking Now, Freaky Friday).

Another one of those! Ghosts just keep coming back and try to settle unfinished business, a la Ghost, Heaven Can Wait, City of Angels, and Death Takes A Holiday. Usually, though, the ghost is coming back to someone they loved and or wanted to love. This one sort of combines your usual romantic comedy with that concept, deciding instead to make the interactions between two strangers.

Elizabeth Masterson (Nashville's home-grown hottie Reese Witherspoon) is a workaholic doctor who has shunned life in favor of getting ahead, and it looks like it's going to pay off. After a 26-hour day she gets on the road and gets plowed by a truck. Now moving into her apartment is recently-widowed David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo), who thinks he's found the perfect wallowing pad until Elizabeth starts showing up and demanding that he leave. You see, she doesn't know she's dead...yet. Eventually, though, she does find out, and David starts helping her figure out who she once was, and actually starts falling in love with her when he finds out that she is indeed not dead, but in a coma.

This movie knows where to hit all your emotional buttons, and all the things that romantic comedy enthusiasts want to see when they see this kind of movie will happen. It's the kind of movie that hits a hardened critic and makes him blush and say, "Oh, all right. You crazy kids..." even though you can see everything coming. Witherspoon and Ruffalo are always winning, and there's a small role from Napoleon Dynamite's Jon Heder as a mystical bookstore worker who feels spirits. Donal Logue plays his usual funny, smarmy self. There's also memorable work from Dina Waters (Mark's wife) as Elizabeth's sister Abby.

So yeah, you got a special someone and want to take them to the movies, this is a decent ticket.