For those who are looking for a nice film, adults who want something more amiable and gentle than the big-budget fantasies, need search no further than Just Like Heaven.

It is also a nice fantasy and, indeed, unashamedly romantic.It is all the more romantic because one of the partners is, presumably, a ghost!

Elizabeth Masterson is a doctor who is absolutely devoted to her patients. She is shrewd, efficient, with the personal touch. But, her workaholism means that she has neglected her own life and relationships. Just as she might be open to broadening her perspective, she is involved in a massive lorry accident.

Meantime, widower, David Abbott, has been grieving for the death of his wife for two years. He is searching for an apartment when he is compelled to visit the apartment of – well, of Elizabeth, of course. And, then she appears. What is going on? Elizabeth is just as puzzled as David. Together they try to find out what has happened. Without spoiling the ending, they get to know each other, understand each other, become friends and fall in love. It’s as nice as that.

The screenplay, from a French novel by Marc Levy, If Only It Were True, is not just mushy (though the American treatment of affection and love is more extraverted than the treatment by more reserved cultures). It is often quite humorous. It has a great advantage in having Reese Witherspoon as Elizabeth. Though still young, she has shown how versatile an actress she is with comedy (Legally Blonde), ironic satire (Election) and drama (The Importance of Being Earnest and Vanity Fair). She has great opportunities for acting and singing in the biography of Johnny and June Carter Cash, Walk the Line.

The romantic lead is Mark Ruffalo who is not a frequent smiler in his films. Rather, he has a kind of hangdog look that suits his performance as David very well. Jon Heder (who stood out as the eccentric adolescent in Napoleon Dynamite) has the role of an assistant at an occult bookstore who has a gift for recognising the presence of ghosts – after all, this is California, San Francisco.

Which means that the film has quite interesting features for Christian audiences. Even though the title has ‘heaven’ in it, this is a completely secular story about death and life after death. There is no God or religious language at all.

Yet, the film resonates with Christian beliefs. It is strongly on the side of life – should life-supports be turned off or not? Elizabeth is not in heaven and she is certainly not in hell. One might have thought about a kind of limbo, but that is a theological speculation that, we read, has lost its status. The Catholic alternative is purgatory. Doctrine says that purgatory is not a place but a state, a state where the dead person has to come to terms with the meaning of their life. This is what Elizabeth has to do. She has to revisit her life. She also has to experience some love so that she can find the meaning of her life.

Religious and theological discussion is difficult to initiate. But, on an ordinary workaday level, watching a film like Just Like Heaven, can lead to a sharing of ideas about death and the afterlife, where the aspirations of those who have little or no faith can meet the beliefs of Christians. Their beliefs can be seen to be more credible. They correspond to deep hopes of what we call Heaven.

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