In P.S. I Love You (Dec. 21), director Richard Legranese (The Fisher King) seems to have the requisite elements needed to make a romantic comedy marketable: A beautiful, quirky, scatter-brained woman (Hillary Swank), an insightful, buff, lively Irishman (Gerard Butler), and a storied marriage between them that is so pure, transcendent, and real, it'll make even the Girls Gone Wild production boys weep with joy. What could possibly stand in the way of its its success? Oh, right. The script.

Gerry, this ever-patient husband, plots for his loving wife a meticulous treasure hunt—driven forward by letters post-scripted with a sugar-sweet "I love you"—leading Holly on a comedic journey toward, sigh, self-discovery. But! Gerry is only alive for the scene preceding the opening credits; all the action takes place after he dies of brain cancer. This premise is the film's greatest selling point, and though the movie aspires to be the season's go-to tear-jerker for all the recently singled hopeless romantics out there, it's awash with more mediocrity than even this forgiving genre can allow.

With an all-star cast that struggles to bring the dialogue to life, the audience is left to wonder if they do in fact care whether or not Holly will eventually get over Gerry's death. Swank gives it a commendable try, bless her, but the role proves too flat for her above-ordinary skills. To boot, the film's irreverence and cheap humor occasionally steers clear of its mark (think a group of priests singing the Pogues lyric "you scumbag, you maggot / you cheap, lousy faggot" during Jerry's memorial service), leaving eyes otherwise poised for a flood practically bone-dry.

It's difficult to acknowledge just how fabulously morbid it is for a deceased husband to control his wife from beyond the grave. The audience is too busy trying to keep pace with Holly's friend Denise (the always stellar Lisa Kudrow) and her sometimes hilarious objectification of men in the search for a perfect mate. Still, no amount of comic puppeteering at the hands of a dead Irishman can outshine the tough-to-swallow convention of desperate 30-year-olds trying to keep pace with their ticking biological clocks. Is it maybe our own fear of the same? We'll only admit to a maybe.