p.s [DVD]

I mention this story because it allows me to understand the leap of illogic that overwhelms Louise Harrington (Laura Linney) in "p.s.," an Independent film written and directed by Dylan Kidd ("One Wild Night") based on the novel by Helen Schulman. The tagline for the film is "What would you do for a second chance?" Louise is an admissions officer at Columbia and when she sees an application from F. Scott Feinstadt (Topher Grace), she calls him up to come in for an interview. After it is over she runs after him and ends up taking him back to her apartment where she pretty much literally jumps him. It does not matter that she is an admissions officer and he is a candidate for admissions. Nor does it matter that she is 39 and he is 18. All that matters is that his name is Scott Feinstadt and he looks something like the young boy drawn on a napkin that Louise has in her possession.

Eventually we (and F.... Scott) learn that Louise considers him to be a dead ringer for her boyfriend who died when she was 17. She insists that F. Scott looks like this boy, sounds like this boy, paints like this boy, and basically makes it clear that the evidence is so obvious and overwhelming that the only reasonable thing to do is treat him like her Scott brought back to life. This Scott likes the sexual part and while being considered a dead guy is bad enough, it is the fact that Louise thinks his art is not his own that really upsets him. If Louisa was not in a vulnerable enough position to begin with, her ex-husband Peter (Gabriel Byrne) has reached Step 9 in his recovery program and shows up to make amends (This is never a good thing in the movies. Well, okay, not never, but the odds are really against you on this thing).

If this remind you of "Birth," another 2004 film, let me assure you that you are not alone. This time the young boy is older, so that there is a sexual dimension to the relationship, but that is not as important as the emotional turmoil that Louise is going through. The biggest difference between "p.s." and "Birth"--and why I rounded up on this one--is that this time when Louise turns to her friend, Missy Goldberg (Marcia Gay Harden) and says that this kid looks like the long dead Scott, her friend readily agrees instead of giving the more obvious rejoinder as to possible insanity. At that point the two women proceed to fight over this Scott, the same way they did over the earlier one two decades earlier. This has its comic moments, but there is also a tragic irony to it and this becomes the best scene in Kidd's film, not only because of the performance by Linney, but because it embracing the absurdity of the situation her character finds the means to let it go. Read more ›