In Just Like Heaven, Reese Witherspoon is Elizabeth -- a beautiful, sophisciated doctor. By design, Elizabeth leaves no time for herself in a day. While only in her twenties, she takes the weight of the world onto her shoulders. Desperate to score a promotion, she has no room for men, let alone a life of her own. Her friends, however, want Elizabeth to loosen up and meet the one guy whose life is not dependent upon her for his survival. They set her up on an ill-fated blind date. But she never arrives, having smashed dead centre into a truck.

Enter David (Mark Ruffalo), who just found himself a sweet deal on an apartment with a wonderful rooftop and amazing  possibilities for his talents. David has far too many problems, including his continuing grief over the loss of his wife two years ago. He doesn't need another problem to contend with, especially finding Elizabeth alone in his apartment one evening. Nor is Elizabeth thrilled to find her apartment thrown into chaos. After all, this is her apartment. But what's become of some of her favorite things -- and who the heck is this David? These two have only one thing in common: the belief that the other one is inhabiting his or her apartment and must leave.

Elizabeth tries to convince David he may be suffering a mental disorder or having delusions. She hits him with a question about always being hammered, and it strikes a chord with him. Believing she might be a delusion, David is too much of a wreck to think otherwise. Come morning, however, Elizabeth is still there confronting him. And she has the annoying habit of disappearing whenever she wants to, but she doesn't stay gone for long. 

Confronted by what he thinks is a departed spirit who cannot cross over to the world of the dead, David goes to the one place where he's likely to be believed. He speaks to Darryl (Jon Heder), a bookseller who's definitely from another planet. In hilarious scenes, David seeks Darryl's advice and employs all manner of priests, exorcists and those who specialize in capturing and removing ghosts. Elizabeth just scoffs at all this and continues to drive him nuts.

In the end, Elizabeth knows she must grow on David and fight hard to make him care enough about her plight so that he will  make sacrifices to save her. After all, she says to him, "You have to (ultimately) choose between two versions of reality. One of them is a woman who came into your life unconventionally and the other is sitting on a park bench talking to yourself." There's no other option. How far will they or won't they go?

Just Like Heaven should not be overlooked because it's a madcap caper or a romance. Although funny, this film is surprisingly intelligent. It's really about how far one will go for others they barely even know. The filmmakers neatly deliver their message in a comedy package. For a change, there's something different and special about this movie. 

If it were not for the considerable talents of Ruffalo, Witherspoon, screenwriters Peter Tolan and Leslie Dixon and director Mark Waters, Just Like Heaven might have been dreadful. Instead, there's more than meets the eye here. I was drawn into the entire plot -- and that's quite a feat considering how absurd it seemed at first. 

(Released by DreamWorks and rated "PG-13" for sexual content.)