A Salty Salute to Nellie McKay in P.S. I Love You

Out on DVD today, P.S. I Love You is a pleasant enough film, absolutely perfect for a plane ride (which is where I had the chance to check it out), where grieving widow Hilary Swank is terrorized by her dead Irish leprechaun of a husband, played by Gerard Butler, with letters sent from BEYOND THE GRAVE! telling her how to grieve, move on, and build a life. It received reviews both atrocious and also grudgingly okay, namely, The New York Times' Manola Dargis admitting that it was girly and she wept in a positive review.

Based on a best-selling chick lit book by Cecelia Ahern, the Irish Prime Minister's daughter (who's found success as both a chick lit author and the creator of TV's Samantha Who), and transferred from Ireland proper to Irish-Americans (and one doomed immigrant) in New York City, P.S. has an innate concept that's both cornpone and creepy, depending on your mood.

However, what tipped the film over the side to kind of fascinating for me was its completely strange casting. First off, the audience is called on to believe that the round-faced Kathy Bates bore the ever angular, piano-smiling Swank, and then, in the oddest casting of all, piano-wielding chanteuse Nellie McKay pops in as Swank's sister.

If you're not familiar with McKay, the easiest description is that she's an NPR-friendly ironist creating eclectic piano-based pop tunes. This Fresh Air interview is a good introduction. Her first album was called Get Away From Me (in response to the huge-selling Norah Jones album Come Away With Me), and it included a song called "I Wanna Be Married." She's pretty hilarious, has a Doris Day face and platinum hair, and talks in a 1950s jazz-baby voice. Her presence in P.S. is quite possibly the weirdest thing about the movie. It's chugging along like a typical chick flick, all grieving and friends being supportive and gratuitous Irish references (of course, The Pogues' "Fairy Tale of New York" is played during the funeral), and McKay cuts through it with her out-of-time delivery of dumb basic lines like "Let's party!"

She made me laugh out loud, and for that, Nellie McKay, I salute you. Hollywood, put her in something else, okay?