A Right to Life Movie

"Just Like Heaven," a romantic comedy starring Reese Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo, did not get the attention that I think it should have received, last year. The movie is out on DVD (for more information, see Amazon.com and Netflix)

Warning: the following may contain "spoilers," and give away the surprises in the movie.

Talk about a timely movie! For most of the movie, the heroine is a disembodied spirit who is actually in a "persistent coma." We learn that she has filled out paperwork to the effect that she does not wish to be kept alive on machinery, and named her sister as her agent in the event that she cannot make health decisions for herself.

At one point in the movie, Elizabeth's spirit attempts to communicate with her sister and the doctor who is recommending withdrawal of life support. She argues that she has changed her mind about her wish to be on a ventilator. Unfortunately, only our hero can hear her.

Elizabeth, the hard working surgery "Senior Resident" in the story has sacrificed most of her life for her career. And she almost loses that life in an auto accident on the way to a blind date.

On the way to her sister's house, Elizabeth is driving while sleep-deprived in a hard rain in San Francisco, and has a head on crash after looking down to adjust her radio.

The movie is a romantic fantasy, with the spirit of a woman "haunting" her apartment, mediums and exorcists, as well as the notion that fate or some other force contrives to bring certain people together. With the implication that some of us are not real except with the one we love and a Sleeping Beauty/Cinderella ending.


There's not much science or medicine in the movie (the pneumothorax diagnosis is preposterous, for instance), but it does address the subjects of a balanced life, grief, the ethics of Advance Directives, prolonged life support, and the pressures on those named to make decisions for us. There's even an opportunity in the movie for parents to discuss sexual morality with their children (our hero turns down the overt seduction by a neighbor).