I made a mistake when watching this movie, one I still regret today. I watched it on a cramped airliner, flying across the Atlantic, on a tiny screen and surrounded by 250 other people. And I watched it at a time when my concept of love was still immature, as teenager.
Still, at the end of the movie I was literally dizzy with emotions and fighting as hard as I could to prevent myself from crying.
This movie is magical, in many ways. The visuals are stunning, but on anything less than a cinema screen, they are out of place. Watching on a 5-inch-screen ruined that part of the experience. And watching it in company prevented me from simply letting go of emotions (and crying), which was also stupid. Finally, watching it before maturing did also take away much of an experience that could otherwise have been incredible.
Why do I regret it all so much? Because, on second and third viewing, the movie has lost much of its punch. It is a wonderful, and heartbrakingly sad experience to watch this movie for the first time. This is not a feel-good laugh-out-loud movie, this is perhaps the most touching story created in the past 20 years, and that is why some people hate it so much. A movie that tears at your heart and tries to squeeze out a tear or two scares many people, especially men (who, like me, usually do not like crying at all), but it is incredibly well crafted. The acting is superb, the story-telling structure is a mixture of a classical pyramid approach (continuously increasing the tension until climax) and a series of flashbacks and non-linear storytelling, and it all works wonderfully. The dialogue is a bit cheesy, but it fits into the general mood of the picture, and the visuals enhance an already brilliant story into a fairy tale of epic proportions. The only criticism I can provide is that, on second viewing, the emotional punch has mostly left, and perhaps it is a bit too short.
The story, it should briefly be mentioned, deals with a husband and father whose children died a few years ago, and who now also falls victim to a car crash. His experiences in the afterlife are the bulk of the story.
All in all, a wonderful movie. I only wish I had seen it in a cinema, alone....
9/10
