It's a pretty weird situation. Your dead husband helping you through the grieving process from beyond the grave.

Yet that's what twinkly-eyed Oirishman Gerard Butler manages to do by virtue of carefully compiling a steady drip of heartwarming epistles to his shellshocked wife.

She's Holly (Swank), a simpering estate agent who, after initial bafflement, hangs onto every word of terrifyingly informed advice from her deceased alpha mail.

These include a girls' night out with her pals Denise (Kudrow) and sister-in-law Sharon (Gershon), a sing-a-long in a karaoke bar and even a de-cluttering session during which Gerard's threads get the heave-ho.

It's actually all a bit creepy, these missives from what is basically a dead control freak whose cold fingers cannot be prised from the land of the living.

Dutifully, Holly hangs on every word and even hops on a transatlantic flight to meet the in-laws and sink a pint of stout in the local pub. Begorrah, she even ends up in bed with one of hubbie's old pals.

This ramps up the glutinous factor until you can barely wade through it with a miscast Swank struggling with a script scrawled on sugar paper.

It would head down the road littered with old DVD cases of Ghost and The Notebook were it not for Kudrow's sassy turn (mercifully injecting the schmaltz with a bit of acid) plus Harry Connick Jr's barman and his weird form of autism. Yes, that's right.

Two hours in and you're praying for a postal strike as Gerard once more eerily second guesses Holly's next move with the aplomb of a seasoned stalker.

Return to sender.

Tim Evans