SYNOPSIS

When David (Mark Ruffalo) sublet his quaint San Francisco apartment, the last thing he expected—or wanted—was a roommate. He had only begun to make a complete mess of the place when a pretty young woman named Elizabeth (Reese Witherspoon) suddenly shows up, adamantly insisting the apartment is hers. David assumes there's been a giant misunderstanding... until Elizabeth disappears as mysteriously as she appeared. Changing the locks does nothing to deter Elizabeth, who begins to appear and disappear at will - mostly to rebuke David for his personal living habits in her apartment.

Convinced that she is a ghost, David tries to help Elizabeth cross over to the "other side." But while Elizabeth has discovered she does have a distinctly ethereal quality—she can walk through walls - she is equally convinced that she is somehow still alive and isn't crossing over anywhere. As Elizabeth and David search for the truth about who Elizabeth is and how she came to be in her present state, their relationship deepens into love. Unfortunately, they have very little time before their prospects for a future together permanently fade away.

Review by
ELISABETH LEITCH

In the simplest terms, to be dead is to no longer be alive. Generally, the word brings to mind flat-lining hospital monitors, caskets, funerals, and cemeteries. It is when your body can’t move and your brain doesn’t work. Unfortunately, even for those of use who do have a fully functioning body, a fully functioning brain, and, by all medical definitions, are certifiably alive, that doesn’t always mean we are truly living.

In the romantic comedy Just Like Heaven, the questions of what it means to be dead and what it means to truly live are what its main characters must deal with.

At the beginning of the movie, we meet Elizabeth Masterson at the San Francisco hospital where she works as a doctor. We first meet her in her dreams, a quick trip to a soothing garden before she is abruptly woken back up to continue her nearly thirty hour day. Then Elizabeth goes to work. She busily goes from one patient to the next, displaying a competence for what she does and an attitude that makes her a doctor who patients like to meet. Yes, she is tired. Yes, she is busy. But there is no question that Elizabeth is alive.

Next we meet, David Abbott. He is searching for an apartment and seems oddly interested in finding one with the perfect couch. Things are not going well, and when the realtor asks him if he can tell her more about his situation, it is clear that that might just make it worse. But, then, after a flyer advertising an apartment for rent will not stop blowing into him, he finds the place he likes.

He likes the couch, and he immediately moves in. The problem is, he pretty much moves in to stay. He sits in front of the TV, he eats junk, he drinks beer, and at one point or another, he goes to bed. He is alive, he seems to have all the proper physical abilities a living person should have, the question is: What kind of life is he actually living?

Straight from these two lives, one seemingly filled with business and positive productivity, the other filled with almost nothing at all, Elizabeth and David collide. The thing is, as far as David can tell, Elizabeth does not quite conform to the physical standards of being alive. She is just a strangely annoying interruption to his life. As she sees it, however, the life she is interrupting is barely even a poor excuse for living.

Beginning with confrontation, the relationship between Elizabeth and David soon develops into one of understanding and soon friendship. Elizabeth doesn’t know what is really going on with her. David wasn’t doing anything with his life anyway. So, the two team up to try to figure out if Elizabeth is really dead or not.

Through their journey to discover who Elizabeth is, David and Elizabeth seek out the people with whom she shared her life. Their lines quickly become familiar. Elizabeth who? Elizabeth had a life outside of the hospital? Yeah right you were Elizabeth’s boyfriend! Yes, her family and coworkers will testify that Elizabeth was alive. She poured herself into her work. She did an amazing job. But beyond that, Elizabeth’s existence seemed to cease.

More than just a search for Elizabeth’s identity, the journey Elizabeth and David take also opens windows into who David is. He tells Elizabeth about the unexpected death of his wife nearly two years before. He did not die with her. He has endured since then. But it is clear that the loss has left him feeling that he no longer has anything to live for.

Searching for life, both David and Elizabeth discover the realities of the lives they had been living before they met. Elizabeth, busy but unconnected. David, unable to connect, and almost afraid that it is something he will never be able to do again. As they go through this journey, however, the value of connection becomes clear to both of them.

On the brink of death and unable to feel the touch of anyone around her, Elizabeth longs not just to live, but to know those around her, to touch those around her, and to truly be known and touched herself. As her life dangles precariously before her, she seems to know that that touch is the only thing that can restore her to a life of truly living. “Do you think if you could ever really touch me,” she says to David, “I might wake up from all of this?”

At the same time that Elizabeth is seeking to restore her life, David is doing nothing short of coming to life. With each step they take to help Elizabeth, he becomes more interested in what they are doing. After saving a man’s life with Elizabeth’s help, he almost radiates a sense of value and purpose that was not there before. As he gets to know Elizabeth better, his concern for her reveals that as much as he thought he could never truly touch someone or be touched by someone again, he wants nothing more than just that.

At the end of it all, the connection, the knowledge, and the love of touch is what both Elizabeth and David seek with all of their beings. Without it, they fear either physical death or living as dead. Through its power, they see resurrection and life…and, in the end, that is what they find.

Upon first thought, the title of Just Like Heaven could be said to simply refer to the fact that Elizabeth spends most of the movie in spirit like form, and far from being a ghoulish figure, she would have to be considered heavenly. After watching the movie, however, I could not feel anything but that the title goes much deeper.

In the end, the movie is about the power of touch; beyond just touch itself, the power of the love behind that touch. The movie shows us how lives void of touch and love are just good as dead. It reveals how the touch of love has the power to resurrect, to restore, and to bring life and value where there was death.

More than just alluding to heaven as a spiritual realm, the movie points to the center of what heaven is. It depicts the love that embodies all that is heaven, the love that desires us to truly live here on earth, the love that desires to restore us and resurrect us so that we may actually live eternally in heaven. Filled with a clearly intentional purpose to unite, to touch, and to open hearts to love, the movie points to our need for that love and the reality that forces bigger than us desire to pour love down upon us and fill our lives with that touch that tells we are truly loved.

As one of Just Like Heaven's taglines says, the movie helps us to see that in many cases, “Only love can bring you back.” And in world where we feel dead and untouchable more often then we may wish to acknowledge, the power of that statement is truly amazing.