Swank is Holly, the uptight, high-strung wife to the happy-go-lucky Gerry, played by "300" star Gerard Butler, not looking the least bit Spartan. She quits job after job, frets over their apartment and puts off any plans he might have for their future. And he just sings. He's Irish, y'see.

"Why can't I be the cute Irish guy who sings?" she wails.

Cut to months later, the scene of a wake. Gerry's dead. Assorted friends and family gather in her mother's bar (Kathy Bates is the mom), and Holly barely keeps it together. She parks Gerry's urn at the foot of their bed, preserves his voice on her answering machine and clings to the memory, the smells of this one man in her life.

When Holly hits rock bottom, her friends (Lisa Kudrow, funny, and Gina Gershon, inexpressive in the extreme) rescue her.

And that's when the letters start popping up. Gerry's planned this elaborate, post-death life-transformation for Holly, to help her get over him, maybe to help her grow a little bit. Bars crawls, karaoke dares, a trip to Ireland to meet his family, all are inspired by letters and plans he's made for her year of mourning.

Cute.

But comedy never works when the effort shows. She is, plainly put, not funny. Butler can be, but he's given little to play, his character being dead and all.

It's a clumsy script, introducing and forgetting the dashing Harry Connick Jr. as a foot-in-mouth bartender who wants to court the widow, but can't. Few funny lines, few moments that genuinely touch the heart. "P.S." should tickle and tease and pause, every now and then, for a tear. Over two intermittently watchable hours, this doesn't.

If only Kudrow had been the lead. She has the smart-aleck timing to make Holly more than a mere widow. She'd have been as equally adept at portraying grief and comic irritation at the way Gerry is still running her life.