Just Like Heaven

Just Like Heaven is fairly standard, probably more appealing to women than men simply by its nature as a romantic comedy, but entertaining and fun to watch regardless.

Reese Witherspoon plays Elizabeth Masterson, a somewhat neurotic E.R. doctor extraordinaire. She has, apparently, no life outside of her job and works 26 hour shifts at the hospital before her boss forces her to go home and sleep, ostensibly under the impression that fatigue is not one of the qualities that patients look for in their surgeons. Driving home from the hospital, Elizabeth is hit by one of those random semi trucks that can often be found careening recklessly up and down those exceptionally steep and narrow San Francisco streets. It happens all the time, I swear. So, following Elizabeth’s unfortunate accident, her family rents out her apartment to David Abbot (Mark Ruffalo), a lonely depressed guy, on a month-to-month basis. Immediately upon moving into the apartment, however, David encounters Elizabeth’s thoroughly annoyed spirit, who orders him to clean up the mess he’s made and then get out of her apartment. He quickly discovers that Elizabeth apparently doesn’t realize that she is a ghost, and once he convinces her of this fact it becomes clear that she also has no memory of her life—except for the fact that she desperately wants people to use coasters on her coffee table. For reasons unknown, David is the only person who can see Elizabeth’s spirit, and while at first they are annoyed with each other and bicker incessantly, they eventually develop feelings for each other. Shocking.

The dialogue in the movie is fairly witty, and there are several scenes that provided some androgynous humor in which I definitely laughed aloud. There was one particularly funny scene in which David hires a variety of different spirit cleansing companies to rid the apartment of Elizabeth’s presence, including an actual Ghostbusters squad replete with the corresponding Ray Parker theme song from the movie. Both Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo do well with their characters, and some of the funniest moments come during their interaction together. The director, Mark Waters (Mean Girls), often shows scenes from the perspective of a secondary character who cannot see Elizabeth, making it appear as though David is essentially bickering with himself. I was pleased that the filmmakers did not overuse this tactic, as it does appear somewhat frequently, but not so much that it becomes glaringly apparent that the writers didn’t have enough material to work with.

While the movie never really explains why Elizabeth’s spirit haunted her apartment or why David is the only one who can see her, it makes enough sense such that I didn’t want to bash my head against the seat in front of me. This movie was surprisingly well-written, and when combined with the acting talents of Witherspoon and Ruffalo, the film becomes quite entertaining and certainly likable. I’m sure it appeals more to women than men simply because it is a romantic comedy about an emotional connection after all, but since my date wasn’t glaring hatefully at me nor was he falling asleep (as he is often wont to do), I think it is safe to say that this would be a good date movie as opposed to a “girls night out” film.

I think it should go without saying that it's certainly not a "boys night out" movie though.