If "P.S. I Love You" proves anything, it's that Hilary Swank may be a great actress, but she can't do cute.

In this dour romantic comedy, she's just-turned-30 Holly Kennedy, who's trying to recover from the death of her impossibly wonderful Irish husband, Gerry (Gerard Butler). Shortly after he dies, Holly receives the first of several postmortem missives sent by Gerry, designed to help her work through her loss and get back on the happiness track. This involves, among many things, dancing in a nightclub, performing karaoke and taking a jaunt to Gerry's home town in Ireland. Holly gamely goes for it, accompanied everywhere by her "Irish" American girlfriends (played by those well-known Celtic gals, Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon), who seem to have nothing but time on their hands to support their good friend.

Swank tries to be endearingly bubbly with an energy that borders on Olympian. But that is almost a contradiction in terms. She never achieves that mien of adorability that came, or seemed to come, so effortlessly from the likes of Meg Ryan and Julia Roberts. It's no small irony that an actress who strives for such authenticity in more realistic dramas comes across as inauthentic here. But she's just part of an endless (more than two hours) unfurling of Irish cliches and Hollywood-style faux sincerity, from the maudlin wake for Gerry (brave smiles through the tears) or the "high jinx" of that Ireland escapade in which Holly and her girlfriends end up marooned -- you'll just die -- in a rowboat without oars! And then there's that wacky moment when Holly tries to sing karaoke and slips on cables and -- should we stop now? We think so.

-- Desson Thomson

Contains mild sexual references and brief nudity.