Be glad when it is all over

Rating: 2/10 (12 June 2016)

Hilary Swank plays Holly Kennedy, a fragile real estate broker who cannot hold down her job and gets married young to happy go lucky Irishman Gerry (Gerard Butler) but he dies of a brain tumour leaving Holly as a grieving young widow whose life comes to a stand still.
On her 30th birthday party she gets a surprise posthumous letter from Gerry informing her that he will be regularly sending her messages containing tasks that she is to perform without question or hesitation. Each message is signed off with the words PS I Love You.
With the help of her friends and family Holly follows Gerry's messages such as singing in a bar or going to his Irish village to meet his parents. With the aid of flashbacks we see the significance of some of these tasks. This all leads to a possible romance with eccentric but funny bartender (Harry Connick Jr) who admires her from afar but realises that she may not be ready to move on from Gerry.
Eventually Holly learns that these tasks from Gerry is for her to put the past behind her and move on with her life.
As a romantic comedy the film is a maudlin cringe inducing mess. I was dumbstruck with the sheer awfulness of this contrived nonsense. I never really bought Holly and Gerry as a couple and believed for a second that Gerry could plan all these tasks for his wife when he was dying.
Just look at the scenes set in Ireland. Holly ventures into a small pub and just happens to stumble upon someone singing a song that Gerry sang to her. She is pushed by her friends to have a drink with the singer (Jeffrey Dean Morgan) and before long they end up in bed because he also just happens to single and available. It turns out that he was also an old friend and a member of Gerry's band.
It simply is a ridiculous film that plods along in a far fetched, drab and clichéd manner.