Very sweet film with lots of good messages about how to live life and deal with death. There were several clichés like the predictably unpredictable car running someone over scenes or the schlubby underdog trying to woo a 10/10 blonde out of his league with his quirky sense of humor. However, Ricky Gervais is genuinely charming, and he's not the (((typical))) lead you see in those beta male romcoms. So you are actually rooting for him and the premise of the movie keeps you intrigued throughout. Similar to how "10 Things I Hate About You" was a retelling of "Taming of the Shew," this is a retelling of "Cyrano de Bergerac." (The one about a guy in the bushes feeding lines to his buddy.) That plus a few other clever plot points make it pretty unique. And despite Ricky not being listed as a writer or director, his British awkward humor shines through and made me lough out loud several times. Which is very rare for any new-ish Hollywood movie. It wasn't some try hard deep movie, but there were still heavy themes and classy decisions with how they executed them. For example, they often let the viewer read between the lines. Like the subtext of the dream being about him being lost and finally finding his way home being an analogy for him wandering in the afterlife. And the lady saying, " it hurts when I smile " symbolizing the guilt people feel after moving on from a loved one's death, like that Gotye line "you can get addicted to a certain kind of sadness." Or having Tea Leoni give a wry smile when noticing the tag accidentally left on the new shirt he bought. Not only does that approach give the audience tension in a Hitchockian way:
But it also gives us satisfaction when we connect the dots instead of having poorly written exposition shoved down our throats just so every moron in the theater can get it. I think that's the main reason it has a bad Audience Sentiment ratio. That plus the weird incongruous British humor that interrupts heartwarming & dramatic scenes sporadically. Personally I like such dark humor and ambiguity but I can understand why it might ruin the mood for some. Still, it's pretty polished and checks all the expected romcom boxes. Yet keeps its initial spirit. (No pun intended.) Again, I am biased because I love yokai/ghost/parallel universe movies. Maybe that's my autistic obsession instead of trains, idk. But still, I think most people would consider it a 3.5 star romcom at minimum. Check it out!