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Based on Helen Schulman’s slight post-feminist comic novel, p.s. tells the story of Louise Harrington (Laura Linney), an addled, sexually frustrated Columbia University arts administrator. She spends too many hours hanging out with her professor ex-husband, Peter (Gabriel Byrne), and too much mental energy obsessing about her one meaningful love from decades earlier, a high-school boy who died in an accident. Lo! A college lad (Topher Grace) applying to her Columbia program has the very same name, F. Scott Feinstadt, as the deceased high-schooler, and a similar voice on the phone. Could this be a ghostly reincarnation calling to her from the grave? Soon Louise is chasing young F. Scott and landing him in bed. It’s a pretty silly scenario, and further stretched by some unfunny catty scenes when Louise’s supposed best friend, Missy (Marcia Gay Harden, uncharacteristically strident), arrives from the West Coast to compete for F. Scott. The best part of p.s. is Linney’s determined performance, and in particular the fabulous erotic scene in which Louise seduces the passive F. Scott. But the film is a disappointing comedown for director/co-writer Dylan Kidd, who made the edgy indie Roger Dodger. (97 minutes)