Postal traumatic stress

Rating: 3/10 (1 December 2018)

Friday night is movie night in our house and so my wife pipes up to say that she's found a nice movie for us to watch together. It's a modern day romantic comedy, although probably with more of the former than the latter, set at least partly in New York, where we happily spent our twentieth wedding anniversary last year and it even starts at Christmas time, ditto. I recognise the title as that of a fairly recent best selling novel written by the daughter of the then Irish President if I remember rightly so with all this to process I think I pretty much knew what to expect.
After starting with a deliberately unconvincing lovers' tiff, amorously resolved of course, the movie shifts gear briefly as we're suddenly brought up to date and transported to the funeral wake of the garrulous musicianly Irish husband. Unsurprisingly, the wife goes to pieces, not going out, locking herself away from her mother, sister and brother in law and her two best girlfriends and generally living like a slob.
Somehow her deceased husband has anticipated all this and to get her back into circulation has set up an itinerary for her, starting every new season over the next year, gradually revealing his well laid plans to her in the form of cryptic letters mailed to her, her family and friends which see her end up going out with her girlies to a gay bar and then further afield to his native Ireland where they first met (cue extended flashback!). In the background there's a faithful barman who's always had a crush on her but you know it's really just a matter of time before her heart comes out of the fridge and she resolves all her outstanding issues with her friends, mother and even her late husband by the end. Near the end I actually thought it was going to subvert convention with something less than a happy ending but of course I'm proved wrong within about 60 seconds.
So, a sort of Irish variation of "Ghost" then, but with a less consistent soundtrack (it's all downhill after the Pogues and Kirsty MacColl's "Fairtytale Of New York"), less laughs but more cloying sentimentality.
It's all pleasant, undemanding stuff, but at over two hours, outstays its welcome. Hilary Swank is nice enough as the reclusive Holly, I must admit I was surprised in a good way at Gerard Butler in comedic mode with tagged-on Irish accent and Lisa Kudrow reprises her kooky Phoebe persona from "Friends" one more time as one of the friends (no pun intended). What else can I say, the Irish Tourist Board must have been happy at the depicted landscapes but I'm struggling to say much more.
At least my wife enjoyed it.