Heaven's Bookstore (2004)

Good vibes but lacks bite

This fantasy movie is about closure for the deceased, and moving on for the living. It is also about a pianist who discovers his reason for living by the end of the movie. Romance is auxiliary.

MC was forcefully recruited to work in Heaven, a place where the dead were waiting for their rebirths. After settling in, he met a female pianist and learnt of her past. ML had a lingering regret after her death. As the two became friends, they worked to resolve this last regret of hers. The romance element in this movie was between the ML and her boyfriend who was still alive. Herein lay the problem!

The movie gave good vibes from start to finish. However, there wasn't any attempt to engage emotionally with the audience at any point in time. I was not emotionally invested throughout the movie. ML's love-story with her boyfriend was only sketched out in flashbacks and the boyfriend's character was not fleshed out. The romance element was only auxiliary in the plot and it seemed as if ML's love-story was recited out of necessity to explain her regret.

In my opinion, the plot would have been much better if ML and MC had a budding romance with the complete omission of the boyfriend character. The ending would still end with the same hope (but a lot more poignant) with the same final scene/act in the movie. This was a missed opportunity for a good romance movie!

Acting and the piano music in the movie were good.

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