Ray Pride

Yes, just like the Cure song. For his fourth feature (after "Freaky Friday" and "Mean Girls"), director Mark Waters marvelously orchestrates the complications of a clever romantic-comedy script by veterans Leslie Dixon ("Outrageous Fortune") and Peter Tolan ("Analyze This") from a French novel. There's much artful dovetailing in how many ways can you keep a couple apart and bring them together, two really lovely people, even if the overworked E/R physician played by Reese Witherspoon appears to be dead and the emotionally drained landscape architect Mark Ruffalo is emotionally dead inside. (Think "Ghost" with excellent gags.) The San Francisco setting suggests "Vertigo"--man, is that Coit Tower erect or what?--but the extensive use of practical locations also suggests the endlessly idealizable virtue of cities that look only like themselves (which in turn made me sad about New Orleans). Witherspoon, who's stunning in her turn as June Carter Cash in "Walk the Line," racks up another comic success here with dollops and dollops of cranky spunkiness; Ruffalo's diffidence and slow burn are well-used. There are complications late in the story that introduce a number of life-and-death issues--oh, a "persistent coma," living wills, you know--that aren't exactly fumbled but distract from what is otherwise an immensely, intensely charming movie. The 1980s pop score showcases Waters' 41 years on earth ("you, soft and only, you, lost and lonely, you, strange as angels"), and "Napoleon Dynamite"'s Jon Heder is attractively shaggy, both of hair and timing, as an occult-bookstore clerk.

"Just Like Heaven" opens Friday.

(2005-09-13)

Also by Ray Pride

Sympathy for the possessed
There was a three-month stretch last year where I watched ten minutes--a "reel"--of "The Exorcist" (1973) every day. Rude or elegant? Accidental construct or masterful design?
(2005-09-06)

Tip of the Week
Simone Bitton's "Wall" is one of too many exceptional documentaries that find expressive ways to confront the myriad contradictions of life in Israel and its occupied territories
(2005-09-06)

Fall Forward: Film
John Waters once said the only subversive act left to him would be to make a sweet, G-rated movie. After collaborating on sketch comedy with "The State" and "Stella" and the teen-movie parody "Wet Hot American Summer," actor-writer-director Michael Showalter wanted to do a 180 of his own
(2005-08-31)

Tip of the Week
Wong Kar-Wai's high swoon of style suffocates some viewers; his trial-and-error manner of shooting bankrupts financiers with each new production
(2005-08-30)

The Politics of Love
(2005-08-30)

Tip of the Week
(2005-08-23)

Begin the penguine
(2005-08-23)

Tip of the Week
(2005-08-16)

All that useless beauty
(2005-08-16)

Tip of the Week
(2005-08-09)

Down to the bone
(2005-08-09)

Tip of the Week
(2005-08-02)

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