Sometimes, I spot a movie on streaming services and it appears to be tailor made for a Catholic film critic such as myself.  Today’s film, Just Like Heaven (2005), appears to fit this description.  If nothing else, it has the word “Heaven” in the title.  Whenever such a term is used, particularly for Western audiences in the Judeo-Christian tradition, there are some assumptions to be made.  However, while viewing the trailer, I noticed that it deals with something that has a complicated history with Christianity: ghosts.  Still, it has Reese Witherspoon in it as Dr. Elizabeth Masterson, and that was enough for me to choose it anyway.

Dr. Masterson’s idea of something being Just Like Heaven is to be working all the time, more so than a medical professional in a hospital would typically be doing.  Her hope is to advance her career as an attending physician, but her family and friends are more concerned with her personal life.  As such, her sister, Abby Brody (Dina Spybey), is trying to get Dr. Masterson to come over for a blind date.  When Dr. Masterson finally gives in, she gets into a car wreck on the way and dies.  Three months pass and we meet widowed landscape architect David Abbott (Mark Ruffalo), who is looking for a new place to live.  Would you be surprised if I told you that the place he chooses is the one once occupied by Dr. Masterson?  It is not long after he moves in that he begins seeing her, although she has yet to realize that she is no longer alive.  Their first encounter is her complaining about his cleanliness, but its brevity has him wondering if he is crazy.  He admits the so-called hallucinations to his friend, Jack (Donal Logue), who initially thinks David is seeing a real woman.  In turn, Jack encourages David to pursue a relationship, but the latter takes it as an invitation to continue looking into whatever it is that is going on with Dr. Masterson.  Her mission is to try to get him to leave her home, attempting to convince him that he is mentally ill.  When this gets her nowhere, she tries to call the police, but finds that she cannot grasp the phone.  It is at this point that he begins to suspect that he is being haunted, so he obtains information on the previous tenant (Dr. Masterson) and reads books on the afterlife.  Having done the so-called research, he tries to summon her.  What gets her to appear is threatening to ruin her belongings.  She slowly begins to accept her state when she finds that she is able to dematerialize through things.  When she refuses to go, and makes her presence as annoying as possible, he resorts to religion.  Sadly, this includes a parody of an exorcism.  Take it from this Catholic, such practices are not something with which to trifle.  As a last result, David asks the owner of the occult bookstore, Darryl (Jon Heder), to come sort out the ghoulish situation.  Though it is ridiculous, he gets the sense that something is going on with David.  Darryl’s conclusion, though, is not that David is being visited by a dead spirit, but that he is still grieving for his deceased wife.  Instead of listening to more, David attempts to go out with Jack to drown his sorrows, but Dr. Masterson prevents David from getting drunk.  Once they leave the bar, they have a thawing of their relations.  As such, he agrees to help her recover her memory, since amnesia seems to be a trait of her form of the afterlife.  Doing so involves a series of so-called comedic follies until they walk past a restaurant she had wanted to eat at before her accident.  While inside, a customer hits the floor and suddenly her abilities as a doctor come back to her.  Using David as her hands, she is able to revive the man.  It also leads them to the hospital in which she worked, and to her mentor, Dr. Fran Lo (Rosalind Chao).  This is how Dr. Masterson finds out that she is in a coma instead of being dead.  Her first thought is that she needs to put herself back together, somehow.  David eventually has to leave, but she stays.  While doing so, she walks into the office of Dr. Brett Rushdon (Ben Shenkman), her former rival for being attending physician.  Walking out of his presence disgusted, she notices Abby and her nieces visiting.  While Abby is there, Dr. Rushdon tries to convince her to sign papers to take Dr. Masterson off life support.  She returns to her apartment to try to get David’s help, but she finds him in an unexpected, compromising position with the downstairs neighbor.  He is able to extricate himself from his neighbor, and doing so strengthens the bond between David and Dr. Masterson.  In the morning, he takes her to a garden he designed, one that she had seen in the dream she had at the outset of the movie.  In the middle of this moment, he gets a call from Grace (Caroline Aaron), his realtor, saying that the apartment is available for permanent lease.  This means that Abby is about to have the life support stopped on her sister, having signed the papers.  David and Dr. Masterson go to Abby’s house to try to convince Abby otherwise, but she says it is too late.  Once more, the solution is Darryl, but his answer is cryptic.  Ready to give up, David and Dr. Masterson go back to the apartment and she says she wants to spend her last day with him.  It is a sign of their love for each other, which he finally admits out loud to his friend Jack, who agrees to help move her body.  However, as they are about to wheel her away, Jack reveals that she had been the one he was going to set up David with before the accident.  Things do not go as planned, and in the scramble, she is disconnected from life support.  She is revived by David giving her mouth-to-mouth resuscitation.  Unfortunately, she does not recognize him when she awakens.  It is only after she moves back into the apartment, goes to the roof, and sees the garden he made for her that she remembers him.

There is the inevitable kiss in the garden that concludes Just Like Heaven, which ultimately is a misleading title for the film.  If this is Heaven, then I have some questions. . . .  Of course, it is supposed to be the love that develops between them that is heavenly, one that is supposedly the work of fate.  As a Catholic, fate is not a concept to which I subscribe.   Still, that does not mean the film is a total loss.  One of the more Christian words brought up in the movie is “gift.” Because David is the only one who can see Dr. Masterson, they wonder if this is a gift.  There is something to this in a Catholic sense, though nothing like what is seen here.  In 1 Corinthians 12:10, St. Paul discusses the gifts of the Holy Spirit.  Among these is the discernment of spirits.  This does not mean one can see ghosts.  Instead, it refers to an ability to understand what God is trying to tell somebody, basically speaking.  God speaks to us in a variety of ways, but sometimes it is more difficult for the person at which the message is directed to understand it than for someone else who is listening to that person’s thoughts.  In a sense, this is a what a spiritual director does, but more in repeating back their interpretation.  It is not perfect, but this is sort of what David does for Dr. Masterson.  Once he figures out what her spirit is trying to accomplish, he does the charitable thing of helping her achieve it.  He is willing to go the “extra mile,” which is a saying that also has its roots in the Bible, being taken from Matthew 5:41.  Finally, all this has the added bonus of being pro-life, at least to a degree.  I was not pleased with Dr. Rushdon’s supposition that most doctors are in favor of terminating life for people in comas.  He also pressures Abby into signing the termination form.  The argument against this, which is articulated in the movie, is that as long as there is function, there is a chance for revival.  Life, like love, deserves an opportunity.

If you have the opportunity to see Just Like Heaven, it is worth a little bit of your time.  It is predictable, but that is romantic comedies for you.  I am just thankful that Dr. Masterson did not have to die.  It is a better ending than the clichéd one before the final credits.