Title: P.S.
Release Date: 2004-10-15
Genres: Drama, Romance, Comedy
High essence:
"Louise raises issues with her mom (Lois Smith), who might favor her younger brother, Sammy (Paul Rudd), a recovering drug addict with whom Louise has a distant relationship as well.""The story does revolve around an Columbia University art school admissions director drawn to a young applicant who may be the reincarnation of her dead high school sweetheart -- but the possibilities of that spiritual element are just a jumping-off point for the complex, earthbound emotional baggage stirred up by her desire for it to be true."
"stays within that territory, it is smart, lusty, wistful, and acted with deep skill and heart -- exactly the qualities that made writer-director Dylan Kidd's 2002 debut ''Roger Dodger such a razor-edged pleasure."
"Scott: He is the very image of her high-school boyfriend, also an artist named Scott, who died in a car crash two decades ago."
"Complications ensue while Paul Rudd, Gabriel Byrne and Marcia Gay Harden each stop by for a guest appearance."
"Together they repel and attract each other, strung out by a fierce and dangerous chemistry that's thrilling to watch."
") Sterritt * For inexplicable reasons, a middle-aged man decides to take dancing lessons but keep this secret from his wife, who suspects something worse is going on."
Medium essence:
Emanuel Levy:- Louise raises issues with her mom (Lois Smith), who might favor her younger brother, Sammy (Paul Rudd), a recovering drug addict with whom Louise has a distant relationship as well.
- There are also intimate calls between Louis and Missy (Marcia Gay Harden in a brassy, over the top performance), her best friend from high school, who later flies from California.
- The script by Kidd and Helen Schulman, based on Schulman's novel, is talky and often verbose; there are too many phone conversations.
Jeffrey M. Anderson:
- The story does revolve around an Columbia University art school admissions director drawn to a young applicant who may be the reincarnation of her dead high school sweetheart -- but the possibilities of that spiritual element are just a jumping-off point for the complex, earthbound emotional baggage stirred up by her desire for it to be true.
- The brilliantly instinctive and unaffected Laura Linney ( Mystic River , You Can Count On Me ) lends palpable weight and depth to long-dormant insecurities and desires in her melancholy, weary, authentically 39-year-old character.
- She is reinvigorated by the tumultuous affair she initiates with the cheeky, nascently charming young painter (Topher Grace), who shares not only an uncanny resemblance and his name with her lost love, but also his talent and his word-for-word desire never to live a just add water life.
Ty Burr:
- stays within that territory, it is smart, lusty, wistful, and acted with deep skill and heart -- exactly the qualities that made writer-director Dylan Kidd's 2002 debut ''Roger Dodger such a razor-edged pleasure.
- She's director of admissions for the graduate art program at Columbia University, and we see her in the opening scenes rigorously applying her makeup and gazing with envy at students canoodling on the quad.
- The film diddles around with the notion that the boy is Louise's lost love reincarnated, but it can't decide whether to run with that as metaphor or plot twist.
Sean Means:
- Working as the head of admissions at Columbia University's fine-arts department, she splits her time between dinners with her ex, Peter (Gabriel Byrne), and living vicariously through the sexual exploits of her married-with-kids best pal, Missy (Marcia Gay Harden).
- She arranges to meet F.
- Scott: He is the very image of her high-school boyfriend, also an artist named Scott, who died in a car crash two decades ago.
Manohla Dargis:
- What's disheartening about the film isn't its contempt for its central character in specific and for women of a certain age in general, or the screenplay's silly swerve into the supernatural or how the direction shows none of the energy of Mr Kidd's first feature.
- Complications ensue while Paul Rudd, Gabriel Byrne and Marcia Gay Harden each stop by for a guest appearance.
- For his part, Mr Grace, whose performance in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic was a gem of callow malevolence, seems to be enjoying himself enormously.
Teresa Wiltz:
- They have standing dates, stuck in that curious safe space that amicably split exes often inhabit: No one's going back to what was, but neither is completely willing to let go of what is to find out what could be.
- Rather, it introduces the idea, toys with it like a bored cat, and then bats it aside.
- Together they repel and attract each other, strung out by a fierce and dangerous chemistry that's thrilling to watch.
David Sterritt:
- ) Sterritt ** Global warming disrupts Earth's heat-circulation patterns, causing a perfect storm that instantly goes global and creates Ice Age conditions.
- ) Sterritt * For inexplicable reasons, a middle-aged man decides to take dancing lessons but keep this secret from his wife, who suspects something worse is going on.
- Breillat is a smart, serious observer of sexuality's often disruptive role in human life, but this existential drama is sadly pretentious.
Low essence:
Emanuel Levy:- Louise Harrington (Linney) works as an admission officer at Columbia University's School of the Arts.
- She maintains a warm relationship with her former husband, Peter (Gabriel Byrne), a popular Columbia professor, though she's still sensitive over their failed marriage.
- Scott Feinstadt (Topher Grace).
- Louise raises issues with her mom (Lois Smith), who might favor her younger brother, Sammy (Paul Rudd), a recovering drug addict with whom Louise has a distant relationship as well.
- There are also intimate calls between Louis and Missy (Marcia Gay Harden in a brassy, over the top performance), her best friend from high school, who later flies from California.
- represents a step down for director Dylan Walsh whose feature debut, Roger Dodger, was a more provocative and interesting film.
- The script by Kidd and Helen Schulman, based on Schulman's novel, is talky and often verbose; there are too many phone conversations.
Jeffrey M. Anderson:
- Gabriel Byrne plays Linney's ex-husband and closest friend (a professor who seduced her when she was a student herself) whose confession of a long-held secret sends her reeling in a scene of remarkably raw anguish.
- Gutsy Marcia Gay Harden makes a surgical-strike appearance as Linney's selfish, aging tart of a busybody best girlfriend, an unhappy Hamptons housewife who has her own jealous stake in the outcome of this curious affair.
- The story does revolve around an Columbia University art school admissions director drawn to a young applicant who may be the reincarnation of her dead high school sweetheart -- but the possibilities of that spiritual element are just a jumping-off point for the complex, earthbound emotional baggage stirred up by her desire for it to be true.
- The brilliantly instinctive and unaffected Laura Linney ( Mystic River , You Can Count On Me ) lends palpable weight and depth to long-dormant insecurities and desires in her melancholy, weary, authentically 39-year-old character.
- She is reinvigorated by the tumultuous affair she initiates with the cheeky, nascently charming young painter (Topher Grace), who shares not only an uncanny resemblance and his name with her lost love, but also his talent and his word-for-word desire never to live a just add water life.
- Grace -- a worthy rising star whose comedic timing on That '70s Show is clearly just the tip of his acting iceberg -- perfectly embodies his art student's mounting curiosity and nagging consternation.
- He doesn't know what the hell is going on with Linney, but he's instantly drawn to her.
Ty Burr:
- stays within that territory, it is smart, lusty, wistful, and acted with deep skill and heart -- exactly the qualities that made writer-director Dylan Kidd's 2002 debut ''Roger Dodger such a razor-edged pleasure.
- She's director of admissions for the graduate art program at Columbia University, and we see her in the opening scenes rigorously applying her makeup and gazing with envy at students canoodling on the quad.
- Scott shows up for an admissions interview that tumbles helplessly into a seduction in the movie's first 20 minutes.
- The film diddles around with the notion that the boy is Louise's lost love reincarnated, but it can't decide whether to run with that as metaphor or plot twist.
- But the laser focus of ''Roger Dodger is gone in this sophomore outing, replaced by more discursive, novelistic ramblings.
- has been co-adapted from Helen Schulman's 2002 novel by the director and the author.
- Talking with Scott, says Missy, makes her feel like her real self -- not the person she sees with a shock every time she looks in the mirror, not somebody's mother, but the girl imprisoned inside.
Sean Means:
- Working as the head of admissions at Columbia University's fine-arts department, she splits her time between dinners with her ex, Peter (Gabriel Byrne), and living vicariously through the sexual exploits of her married-with-kids best pal, Missy (Marcia Gay Harden).
- She arranges to meet F.
- com in 2004, and information in the article may be outdated.
- Scott: He is the very image of her high-school boyfriend, also an artist named Scott, who died in a car crash two decades ago.
- At one point, it's a discourse on the possibilities of reincarnation - and a better one than the morbid Birth earlier this fall.
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Manohla Dargis:
- What's disheartening about the film isn't its contempt for its central character in specific and for women of a certain age in general, or the screenplay's silly swerve into the supernatural or how the direction shows none of the energy of Mr Kidd's first feature.
- An administrator in the applications department of a New York City graduate program, Louise lives one of those lonely career-gal lives that went out with garters and girdles, or so I thought.
- Complications ensue while Paul Rudd, Gabriel Byrne and Marcia Gay Harden each stop by for a guest appearance.
- For his part, Mr Grace, whose performance in Steven Soderbergh's Traffic was a gem of callow malevolence, seems to be enjoying himself enormously.
- It includes strong language and sexuality.
- It's only after this symbolic disembowelment, after Louise has been opened up and her insides are hanging out for everyone in her life to feast on (and feast they do), that she can be put back together and set on the road to inevitable closure.
Teresa Wiltz:
- They have standing dates, stuck in that curious safe space that amicably split exes often inhabit: No one's going back to what was, but neither is completely willing to let go of what is to find out what could be.
- Rather, it introduces the idea, toys with it like a bored cat, and then bats it aside.
- Together they repel and attract each other, strung out by a fierce and dangerous chemistry that's thrilling to watch.
David Sterritt:
- ) Sterritt ** Global warming disrupts Earth's heat-circulation patterns, causing a perfect storm that instantly goes global and creates Ice Age conditions.
- ) Sterritt * For inexplicable reasons, a middle-aged man decides to take dancing lessons but keep this secret from his wife, who suspects something worse is going on.
- Breillat is a smart, serious observer of sexuality's often disruptive role in human life, but this existential drama is sadly pretentious.
Source:
http://www.csmonitor.com/2004/1015/p14s01-almo.html
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A26880-2004Nov4.html
http://www.boston.com/ae/movies/articles/2004/11/05/lust_and_loss_combine_in_ps
http://www.sltrib.com/themix/ci_2485588
http://www.combustiblecelluloid.com/splicedwire/ps.shtml
http://www.nytimes.com/2004/10/15/movies/15ps.html?ex=1129348800&en=ada3d8eccbd72062&ei=5083&partner=Rotten Tomatoes
http://www.emanuellevy.com/review/ps-1/