On December 19, Ryan Whitaker’s film “P.S. I Love You” – a melodrama based on real events – is released. Let’s figure out why the love story of two students, despite having original prototypes, turned out boring and derivative.

The melodrama genre seems to have almost exhausted its ideas for plots, because even when moving away from the established pattern of good girls and bad boys by replacing the bad boy with a good one (even an ideal one), it again comes to self-repetition within the framework of genre explorations.

Meet Caroline Drake (Rose Reid) – a gifted, determined girl who, of course, has not yet experienced all-consuming love. But please, step onto the sidewalk, because the meeting will take place under very unusual circumstances: Caroline will meet you riding a police horse, leisurely trotting through the Oxford morning fog.

The heroine herself, like the well-known legislator of the “detached nerd” image Bella Swan, with a face even more deathly pale than the fog around, marks the beginning of the film with a heart-wrenching monologue about life’s path, generously seasoned with references to Aristotle and teleology, which should immediately demonstrate the girl’s extraordinary mental abilities to us – ordinary mortals of average intelligence.

And if lofty speeches were not enough to draw clear boundaries between the main character and the secondary characters, who are not alien to lateness, academic slumps, bar hangouts, and love interests, then the unobtrusive mention of reading the Iliad and Odyssey in childhood, a montage of teenage speeches touching on politics and the patriarchal system, will hammer this information into your head as firmly as possible, and never mind that part of the film is already behind you, and the desire to watch is a third less.

Maybe at least visually the film will delight and hold the gaze, which tirelessly strives to roll up to the cerebellum itself? The viewer finds themselves in Oxford – not the place that reminds you of the magical Christmas atmosphere and mysticism of Harry Potter films, or drags behind it a trail of scientific films. The Oxford of modern melodrama is a repository of tolerance and boredom. An atmospheric place, whose beauty is tirelessly shown in the frame, giving them a solid degree of involvement, the magic of antiquity does not work, since the facades in this case are meant to be an identification of the characters, mood, and with this in “P.S. I Love You” it is scarce.

And before moving on to the main character, let’s consider the “backdrop”. Oxford professors and students are diverse within the framework of the modern agenda. Count on your fingers: a Filipina with signs of OCD and belief in the supernatural – check, a black man – present, the first female provost (we must mention this separately in the film) – in the basket. Bingo! But the problem is that only a few really influence the heroine’s beliefs and personal growth. But is that the problem?

Considering that the film is literally a sluggish carousel of lessons and discussions about life’s path, love, and faith, let’s move from the external to the personal.

Caroline’s image is so desperately absolutized that she is simply boring. And not at all because she is correct, no. The girl can drink beer and chat with friends about her personal life, but her surroundings are clearly livelier. Even in a state of alcohol intoxication, rational Caroline will hardly allow herself too much. She attends classes on Romantic literature inaccessible to mere mortals, and then just as blandly debates with the object of her love (Rory O’Connor). The dialogues are a clash of a personality pursuing a race for a goal and a chaste Christian, Kent Weber, who not only tries to encourage the girl to take a step towards feelings, but also towards faith.

The lovers’ argument about the need to start a relationship is the main track that spins the idea that achieving life goals not tied to the emotional hooks of our heart is meaningless. Is a career worth anything if you miss your true love in the process? Does a person need faith? Or reject it altogether, relying solely on hard work, which without faith and feelings will not bring happiness?

Perhaps the little that really grabs you in the film is the creators’ desire to at least indirectly immerse the viewer in the opposing worldviews of the heroine and her beloved by throwing in literary works that somehow fit the moment.

For example, William Blake’s “Songs of Innocence and of Experience” is touched upon – a collection of poems that can be attributed not only to the local theme of virginity raised in the conversation, but also to viewing experience as the opposite of the inhibition the heroine experiences by denying love and attraction. C.S. Lewis’s work “Surprised by Joy” fits perfectly into the narrative line about spiritual growth, and literature and faith run inextricably through all that has been mentioned.

It’s not that the film doesn’t try to appeal to deep ideas that make you think, or doesn’t make incursions into philosophy and even psychology. The ideas that truth is relative, knowledge is advancement over a limited distance, and man is a creature groveling before something greater, driven by faith, are interesting.

But it turns out that the entire film is one big step towards one’s feelings, which are presented like a dish in an expensive restaurant. And if in average melodramas love is presented like a tasty crouton, then “P.S. I Love You” is a crouton that will be served to you with an imperturbable smart look.