Just Like Heaven (2005)


Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon are delightful as David Abbot and Elizabeth Masterson in Just Like Heaven. He is a landscape gardener whose wife has died, he is having a hard time moving on. Elizabeth is a 20-something overworked physician, who after putting in countless hours in ER, is involved in car accident that leaves her in a coma. Unbeknownst to David, he sublets Elizabeth's apartment and this is where the fun starts.

Elizabeth's feisty spirit walks out of the hospital and goes home. She is outraged to find messy David living in her lovely apartment, drinking beer and leaving rings from the can on her tables. They both want to know "Who are you? What are you doing here? She wants him to leave, he wants her to leave. To make matters worse, David soon realizes that he is the only one who can see Elizabeth, and, to her chagrin he has the gall to call her Lizzy.

She appears everywhere, in his bathroom, even in his refrigerator. David has to tell someone so he tells his good friend Jack (Donal Logue) that he is seeing someone. Jack says "Finally!" David explains that he is the only one who can see her--Jack is a psychiatrist so he starts to write the information down, of course David objects. Friend Jack doesn't really understand, but a quirky bookstore employee named Darryl (Jon Heder) does, he finds a book for David and advises him to use it to get rid of Elizabeth's spirit by exorcism. (As always Jon Heder is delightful and realistic. You get the impression that his "Darryl" character is not to far removed from the actor's true self). David tries the exorcism, among other things. It does not work, nothing does.

Elizabeth follows David around nagging and chastising him because he is messy, he doesn't work, doesn't eat the right foods and drinks too much. They fall in love but can't do anything about it because her body is lying comatose in the hospital. When David tries to get some information that may help Elizabeth become her whole self, she listens as neighbors and her hospital colleagues describe her dull, work-alcoholic, non-dating life. They go to Elizabeth's hospital room and are happy to see her nieces and her sister visiting. But David has heard some disturbing news while in the hospital and passes it on to Elizabeth. They visit the sisters home, and David tries to convince the sister that she (Elizabeth) is standing with him at that moment. The funny thing is, one of her nieces who has many imaginary friends does see her aunt, but the child does not say anything, she simply goes off to play, but not before placing an extra cookie on a plate. Elizabeth has one last drastic plan, and she needs David to pull it off. In desperation he agrees that, with the help of his friend Jack, they will steal her body. Will his friend help them? It turns out that Jack is the key to reuniting Elizabeth's spirit into her body. Hopefully, we will see Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo in more movies, they work well together and have the comedic timing that Carole Lombard and Robert Montgomery show in Alfred Hitchcock's 1941 comedy "Mr. and Mrs. Smith" .

While all of this may sound somewhat morbid, Just Like Heaven is a fun, light movie. There have been many comedy's about ghosts and spirits. "Blithe Spirit" the wonderful Noel Coward play was brought to the screen in 1945 by director David Lean and a delightful cast. The movie stars Rex Harrison, Kay Hammond, Constance Cummings and Margaret Rutherford as the spiritualist Madam Arcati. Arcati has been invited to conduct a seance for entertainment at the home of Rex Harrison and his second wife Constance Cummings. By mistake she contacts the ghost of Harrison's first wife. Now that ghostly and sexy first wife Elvira (Kay Hammond) is back, she refuses to leave.

Just Like Heaven is rated (PG-13)