Over Her Dead Body

Henry (Paul Rudd) and Kate (Eva Longoria) were about to walk down the aisle when Kate was killed in a slapstick wedding-day accident. A year later, Henry's still mourning the escape from a life of browbeating, so his sister presses him to contact a psychic to put his mind at rest. Said medium (Lake Bell) turns out to be a tawny beauty molded like a Vicky's Secret contractee; romance blossoms anew, to the chagrin of Kate's awakened ghost, who commences with sabotage. Many a comic potentiality is underworked, and the film's prevailing tone is obnoxiously erratic—surely the supporting eccentrics (Jason Biggs and Lindsay Sloane) aren't supposed to be so off-putting?—but it rests safe when entrusted to the charisma of its principals. This is no career high, but it's impossible to actively dislike Rudd: Women want him (he's cozy-handsome in a feasible imaginary-boyfriend way); men want to forward his viral videos around the office. And Bell—with her broad ducky lips, scrunched wince, and long arms swatting at the air—has promise as a winning comedienne. Nobody was clamoring for this Blithe Spirit revival but, real talk, it's a fine hiatus from earthly thought.