"I'm trying to figure out why God killed my husband," cries Hilary Swank's character near the start of "P.S. I Love You" (Warner Bros.), an uneven but ultimately touching and well-acted love story.

At the beginning of the film, Swank's character, Holly, is having a spat with her Irish husband, Gerry (Gerard Butler), mostly to do with her not being ready to have children. But the argument soon morphs into some nongraphic lovemaking. Their deep affection is obvious.

The next thing we know, Holly, her pub-owning mother, Patricia (Kathy Bates), and her girlfriends Denise and Sharon (Lisa Kudrow and Gina Gershon, respectively) are taking part in an Irish wake for Gerry who has, we learn, died of a brain tumor.

Holly is disconsolate, becoming an unwashed recluse, listening to Gerry's voicemail message to lull her to sleep, watching old Bette Davis movies, and letting her New York apartment go to seed.

But lo and behold, just as Mom, Denise and Sharon show up to shake her out of her doldrums on her birthday, a cake from Gerry arrives, along with a message taped before his death, in which he informs her he has arranged for her to get a series of periodic letters from him to guide her through the grief process. For now, he says, go out and start living again.

Despite these welcome missives "from beyond," of which Mom strongly disapproves -- she never liked Gerry and wants Holly to just accept the fact that he's gone, like her own husband when he walked out -- Holly still mourns despite the patient attention of local bartender Daniel (Harry Connick Jr.), who would like her to forget Gerry and show a romantic interest in him.

Later, a preplanned trip (again by Gerry) to Ireland for Holly and her girlfriends puts her in contact with Gerry's parents and William (Jeffrey Dean Morgan).

Writer-director Richard LaGravenese's film, based on a novel by Cecelia Ahern (daughter of Irish Prime Minister Bertie Ahern), seems contrived at first, but slowly builds in interest as its heroine goes through her healing journey.

The Ireland sequences, which include a lengthy flashback showing how Holly and Gerry first met there, are particularly lovely, and the chemistry between Swank and Butler, rather forced in the opening scenes, takes fire here.

Some of the dialogue for the tart-tongued, feminist Denise is ribald, but at heart she's just looking for true love, and she does indeed find it (along with marriage) in the course of the film. Less felicitous from a Catholic standpoint is the way she and Sharon prevail upon William to stay the night at their Irish cottage, hoping to bring about a romantic liaison with him and Holly.

Bates' hard-nosed character softens as the film progresses, but her tough-love advice to her daughter is along the lines of "we're all alone, but together in our aloneness"; while not exactly denying God's part in the equation, this still seems to suggest a hesitancy in relying on faith.

Despite these lapses, this engaging film touches the heart.

The film contains moderate conversational expletives and crass expressions, one nonmarital and a couple of marital nongraphic bedroom scenes and casual acceptance of the former, some sexual banter and passing homosexual references, and brief rear male nudity. The USCCB Office for Film & Broadcasting classification is A-III -- adults. The Motion Picture Association of America rating is PG-13 -- parents strongly cautioned. Some material may be inappropriate for children under 13.

Movies have been evaluated by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishop's Office for Film and Broadcasting according to artistic merit and moral suitability. The reviews include the USCCB rating, the Motion Picture Association of America rating, and a brief synopsis of the movie.

The classifications are as follows:

• A-I -- general patronage;
• A-II -- adults and adolescents;
• A-III -- adults;
• A-IV**
• L -- limited adult audience, films whose problematic content many adults would find troubling. L replaces the previous classification, A-IV.
• O -- morally offensive.