Never, ever, ever watch this film if someone you love recently has died. With that caveat aside, enjoy "Truly Madly Deeply" as the most intelligent, funny, bittersweet and yes, in the lexicon of most movietomers, awesome ghost story of...
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Never, ever, ever watch this film if someone you love recently has died. With that caveat aside, enjoy "Truly Madly Deeply" as the most intelligent, funny, bittersweet and yes, in the lexicon of most movietomers, awesome ghost story of the modern film era.

This is director Minghella's debut, and as such I far prefer it to his later fare. Here we have personality quirks, true as opposed to stagey-affected torment (as in "The English Patient," ptooey,) left field humor, and a genuinely touching quality throughout.

Juliet Stevenson's longtime partner has died suddenly. Even a year later, she's coping horrendously badly, although this is understandable since she has lost Alan Rickman at this most warm and charming. She is in fact coping so badly that he comes back, as a never-explained entity for her to return to their domestic ways of old with, making love, living together, etc. And annoying one another. In fact it becomes obvious to everyone but Stevenson that there is an important reason that Rickman inserts himself back into her now dysfunctional life, and that's the plot of the film. Please bear with the first 20 minutes of Stevenson's palpable torment until the "ghost" arrives. In between, you'll be treated to the two leads joyiously singing the fabulous Walker Brothers hit "The Sun Ain't Gonna Shine Any More" as if they were were trying to out-belt every karaoke bar extant, Rickman (now known for villain and wizards) at his most warm, charming and eccentric, Stevenson embodying pain to an almost clinical degree, and wacko asides like the ghosts friends all coming to visit so that they can watch videos they can't get in the hereafter...