p.s. (Dylan Kidd)
Laura Linney stars in another compelling role as Louise Harrington, a woman who is going through personal struggles from a failed marriage and a love that was lost when she was just a young girl. The movie starts unfolding with her review of an application from an art student applying to Columbia. As the head of admissions, she reviews the papers with her hands shaking.
We began to realize why she’s so nervous as she calls the potential student, like a school girl asking the jock at school to the Sadie Hawkins, to make an appointment for an interview. What happens in their face to face encounter is surprising, until you realize that man child reminds her of her old boyfriend in high school who had died in a car crash decades earlier. Sharing a similar name, F. Scott Feinstadt played by Topher Grace (the goofy Eric Forman on “That ‘70s Show) seems to be his incarnate with the same mannerisms, looks, and the clincher: the deceased’s style of art.
One starts to wonder if she ever got over the first Scott, or if she’s just trying to grab at any chance to relive the past when she had passion in her life, to go back to a time when life was less complicated and she had less scars. What would seem to be a very logical thinking woman is now unlocking her inhibitions with a determination not to let him go again.
Topher Grace gets away from the goofy, showing a completely different side of himself, more so than in the high-school romantic comedy “Win a Date with Tad Hamilton.” This time around, his character has a keen and unexpected sense of what she’s gone through, even though he’s about twenty years her senior and has only known her a few days. The roles between the couple reverse back and forth as she struggles and he comforts.
Even the dynamics of Louise’s past relationship with her best friend Missy (played by Marcia Gay Harden) come rushing back as if they just got out of homeroom as they continue to fight over the guy that left them both decades ago. This interplay reminds us that although memories may fade, they can resurface as if not a day has gone by.
This movie is of this time, taking a look at the past but in the end, realizing that the present is the best place to be. p.s. shows how one can kid themselves into thinking they can really control life instead of realizing that the universe will play its part. It’s only when we let go and breath do we allow ourselves to live life one day at a time.
The movie opens at Starz Film Center Friday, November 12. Go to www.starzfilmcenter.com for showtimes.
