Gray Wheeler in “”Catch and Release”” may be Jennifer Garner’s greatest role in years. In the dramatic and powerful film, she copes with the memory of her dead husband by learning about his past life and who he really was when they dated.

The story, with its mixture of sweet comedy and dreadful woe, deals with the death of a loved one in an intelligent way. Although Wheeler’s husband is dead, she and her friends keep him alive through their memories.

The movie starts with Wheeler’s fiance’s funeral, which falls on what would have been their wedding day. Wheeler’s emotions are raw and real; a fiancǸe in ruins.

She then meets her ex-fiance’s best friend, Fritz (Timothy Olyphant). In a series of events, Wheeler falls in love with Fritz.

Fritz, whom also likes Wheeler, tells her about her fiance’s past. The fiance had a kid with another woman, Maureen (Juliette Lewis), which was something he had never told her.

Wheeler becomes furious, and does not know what to do. Only then when Wheeler finally meets this woman and her son dies she learn how to deal with her new situation and with the past her late fiancǸ has left behind.

“”Catch and Release”” shows a fresh Garner. She perfectly

portrays the idea of losing a loved one, and rides an emotional rollercoaster of an almost widowed woman with an eerie reality.

Garner’s co-stars Olyphant, Kevin Smith and Sam Jaegar are great. Jaegar plays Dennis, a friend in love with Wheeler, and Smith plays Sam, a robust and delightful friend who works for a tea company.

Lewis also steals some scenes in the picture. There’s a scene where her character Maureen, a health nut, cooks what Sam refers to as “”lawn,”” which shows how healthy Maureen’s cooking is. It also brought some laughter into the film.

The awe-inspiring setting of Boulder, Colo., gives “”Catch and Release”” a real-life feel. The house where most of the movie takes place is homey and not typical of most movies in Hollywood.

There’s also a scene where everyone goes fishing and the views are breathtaking. Garner sits and reads in a huge chunk of tree that makes her look like a mermaid in a seashell.

The only part of the movie that wasn’t believable and needed was Wheeler’s love affair with Fritz. It was too forced to be a part of actual life.

Wheeler had just dealt with the death of her soon-to-be husband. For her to fall in love with her husband’s best friend in the run of a couple months detracted from the film’s believability. Even if occurrences like this do happen in real life, it just wasn’t credible in the movie.

Overall, “”Catch and Release”” is a refreshing film, showing Garner’s acting abilities and a predictable but enticing plot.