Love story practically a slice of "Heaven"

By Chhun Sun
The Collegian

“Just Like Heaven” wants its audience to know one thing and one thing only.

Everybody has a soulmate.

Even if you’re a workaholic doctor and can’t seem to find the time for a partner, there is someone out there for you.

That’s the character Reese Witherspoon plays in “Just Like Heaven,” a romantic comedy that opens everywhere today.

Directed by Mark Waters (“Mean Girls” and “Freaky Friday”), the film is part of a season where romantic comedies (“The Wedding Crashers” and “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”) have done fairly well among blockbusters like “War of the Worlds” and “Fantastic Four.”

“Just Like Heaven” is exactly what the title implies and deals mostly with the afterlife, with the sprinklings of Hollywood fate and good-sided humor, making the film more than just a chick flick.

Witherspoon plays Elizabeth, a perky physician who works as much as 26 hours at a time at a San Francisco hospital. It’s all in an effort to land a job as a full-time physician.

At the same time, her colleagues and sister Abby are trying their best to make sure she doesn’t work herself to death, which, of course, is what she does.

Or, does she really? And that’s what the audience tries to figure is she really dead?

Enter David (Mark Ruffalo), a lonely architect still coping with the loss of his wife who died from an aneurism two years ago. He finds that the new apartment he lives in belonged to Elizabeth, who is now a ghost.

This is when the comic exchanges comes in and it really saves the movie from becoming too sappy or from making anyone want to vomit in their mouth.

Sometimes the lazy-voiced Ruffalo (“Collateral” and “13 Going on 30”) steals scenes from Witherspoon, whose character Elizabeth is a combination of the characters she played in the “Legally Blonde” movies and “Sweet Home Alabama.” When Witherspoon throws punches, Ruffalo is capable of returning them.

When David gets too freaked out by the fact that a ghost is roaming around his apartment, he finds a metaphysical bookstore employee — Darryl (Jon Heder). In this role, he typecasts himself as the outsider in “Napoleon Dynamite” but, man is he funny. His character says things like “I’m 99 percent parched right now. I could sure use a co-la.” Basically, Darryl helps David understand why Elizabeth is haunting him, even though in any other movie the scenario would scare the audience.

For the most part, the storyline is predictable and the ending is forced. Otherwise, “Just Like Heaven” is one of those movies that can lift you off your feet.