One of the few great moments of “PS I Love You” is when director LaGravenese allows Swank and Bates to shine. Bates is no longer a mild supporting character, and Swank is no longer a cliché. The two are given platitudes of depth in a fight they have in Bates’ character’s bar, where Bates begs Holly to move on with her life and not base her life around this stunt Gerry left for her, while Holly wants to follow this gift as long as she can. The exchanges between the two make for a powerful scene where Bates only wants what’s best for Holly, while Holly is clearly clinging to Gerry’s memory through these mementos. It’s sadly just a hint of what this movie was really capable of. Meanwhile, the plot is pretty interesting if ill-conceived. Gerry’s goal in the scavenger hunt is not so much to string Holly along, but to show her that there are lots of great guys out there waiting for her, and lots of new experiences for her to have. It’s that coming of age story this should have been.

“P.S. I Love You” was a curious little beast, one that had some shreds of sadness, but also was about insufferable as your typical Hollywood sap fest while also garnering the dubious casting of people like Gerard Butler, who feels awfully out of place here, and Hillary Swank, whose own acting choices are laughable, lately. “P.S. I Love You” is based around almost every neo-romance cliché you can imagine, and tells an oddly absurd story revolving around a woman’s loss of her husband, and his scavenger hunt that he compiles for his wife after he dies from a brain tumor. The whole concept of which is just outlandish, considering he could be spending his last moments with her on this Earth, or maybe trying to appreciate his own life. But we’re supposed to buy this, because hell, there’s no movie without this cheesy hook. Swank and Butler are not bad actors, in fact they’re quite good, but “P.S. I Love You” does nothing to show us that. Instead, fair readers, we’re given the typical doldrums of chick flick territory, and the director even depends on a goofy lazy photo montage to explain their romance.

And then we’re subjected to more questions that we know the answers to. Will Kudrow’s character ever find the right guy? Will Holly ever move on with her life? Will she seek solace in a romance movie on TV at one point? Will she learn something about herself in the scavenger hunt? Will she fall in love with the hunky bartender Harry Connick Jr.? Why do we have flashbacks of scenes we saw minutes earlier? Writers LaGravenese and Rogers can never seem to put enough time in Holly’s search for Gerry’s clues, so instead they inflict padding in the guise of Holly’s friends who are also searching for love, and just may get it. We know they get it. They’re just not interesting enough as characters to care if they do. “P.S. I Love You” may be too womanly for a guy like me, but you don’t have to be either sex to know all potential is dashed in a hail of clichés.

While there are the occasionally touching and gripping moments, and great potential in the premise, “P.S. I Love You” is much too scattered and tedious to really enjoy. I didn’t hate it as much as I thought I would, but it doesn’t make a great argument for appealing to men, in the long run.

• Was anyone else expecting Gerry to eventually have frozen sperm waiting for Holly somewhere so she could have a baby? That would have been a twist worth three stars, I tell ya.