Shortly after David Abbott moves into his new San Francisco digs, he has an unwelcome visitor on his hands: winsome Elizabeth Masterson, who asserts that the apartment is hers -- and promptly vanishes. When she starts appearing and disappearing at will, David thinks she's a ghost, while Elizabeth is convinced she's alive.
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Just Like Heaven is a 2005 romantic comedy featuring Mark Ruffalo and Reese Witherspoon. Catching this on the television when I was on holiday, I decided to settle down and watch it, just because I had nothing else to do whilst waiting to go out. I found a funny, sweet, very sensitive and almost realistic touch to a love story between mortal and ghost. It's been a long time since I really enjoyed a romantic comedy, but Just Like Heaven brings it all perfectly. Mark Ruffalo plays the lonely, sensitive man, who wants to know what love is. To want to have someone to love. Reese Witherspoon plays the ghost of the doctor who works too hard to have a love life, and doesn't know how to really step back to focus on love. When Witherspoon's ghost ends up attached to Ruffalo, they're both unhappy with it. They annoy each other, they get on each other's nerves, but slowly, we see the sweet romance - although predictable - bloom between them. No points for originality, but definitely points for doing it in such a sweet way. There wasn't a massive change of heart, where they go from hate to love in seconds, but we saw it develop. We saw them thrive off of each other, and slowly coming round to each other. This is rarely done in romantic comedies, especially in modern films, so seeing this done so beautifully was an absolute treat. Ruffalo and Witherspoon truly bring their characters to life. It's something that is expected of actors and actresses. For characters to seem real just because they're played by real people - but both actor and actress take the medal for me. They really made both characters feel like they were people I could actually find in the street, people that were just trying to live their every day lives, maybe they could even be my neighbours, or an aunt or uncle. I felt like I knew them, that I knew these characters created in a script, as if they had been in my life for a long time.Never before have I found a romantic comedy so sweet, so fun, and just so. Real. The jokes were really on point for the humour of 2005, but also, they're still funny now. They're still relatable, and it's not easy to find a film from over a decade ago that is still funny. Humour ends up outdated, just like everything else in the film industry, so finding the humour in this to still be a gem was wonderful.I would definitely watch this again, and I definitely recommend it to people, even now in 2017. This would be my first recommendation for anyone who asked me for a romantic comedy film to watch. Absolutely spectacular. I hope to see more films in recent years become more like Just Like Heaven.
I loved it twice i have watched it now. Its funny too and well paced, good story made me giggle in lots of places. Sad too but it all came right in the end.I loved the chemistry between them both. I wont say much as people can read it for themselves, but if you want to know whether its worth watching yes it is, really, you wont be disappointed. Go on you know want too. A little bit of heaven to while away an afternoon or when you are having a duvet day.
Notting Hill started right after. It must be rom-com late night tonight. My first thought is I think I liked this a touch better than Notting Hill actually. Maybe it's the whole British thang.. ? .. Bah I love Brit/pop, love special bitter ales, AND a lot of British films... Then what is it? I dunno, maybe I find Ruffalo and Witherspoon more charming? Nah, I don't think that's it. I think it's the chemistry, but now that I think about it some more I do prefer Ruffalo to Grant's ever-loathsome character(plays that guy a bit too much actually). While both films are predictable(whole genre) - I think Just like Heaven comes together a bit better down the stretch. So Witherspoon and Ruffalo work great together here, and the race against time plot also adds quite a bit to the second half. The supporting roles are written and acted with care, and obviously this is a rom-com with enough charm to over-ride the sap for the fellas. I can definitely recommend this and may even need to revisit 2005's top-25 list to see if this creeps in the bottom. It may, and considering I see about 80+ films a year, that's quite the accomplishment.. I can count those that have this millennium on one hand.. This years"Aloha", last years "Enough Said".. Maybe as good as it gets.. Maybe devil wears Prada... "Silver linings and seeking a Friend from '12, Barneys Version Midnight in Paris from the couple years before that... Either way I only see 1-2 make my top 25 most any given year, so that would probably make this top two for the genre in '05.. Let me go look.. Yea, I wouldn't call Wedding Crashers a rom-com even though it's close so that would make this clearly the best rom com for '05 and I'm putting it at #25, as believe it or not, it knocks "revenge of the sith" off the list(the only of the 2nd trilogy to now have 'made a list' for any time. 69/100
When I sat down to watch this on cable, I had the idea I wouldn't like it. It just seemed like "Topper" (from 1937) recycled once again. But the there was an interesting twist. Reese Witherspoon's character wasn't dead...she was in a coma...so not exactly a ghost. That difference saved the film for me. And, when I sit down to watch a film on cable, I rarely watch it all the way through during one sitting. Here, I did. So this was a pretty good film.The significant cast is pretty small here. Reese Witherspoon is excellent as the young doctor who is in the coma...and "haunting" her old apartment. Mark Ruffalo...well, I was distracted by 2 things...first...why doesn't he shave; second...he looks like a mature Donny Osmond. But I know those things aren't important. What about his acting. Pretty good. Believable. A good acting partner for Witherspoon. Jon Heder as the clerk in a paranormal bookstore..well, every time I've seen him he's in some offbeat role, and I fear that he's stereotyping himself.I recommend this film. It won't end up on my DVD shelf, but I'll probably watch it again someday on cable. The acting is pretty good and, as mentioned, Witherspoon and Ruffalo are paired well here. Incidentally, I thought the score was interesting. Sometimes it reminded me of something akin of "Lawrence Of Arabia".
