Actress Hilary Swank is writing all her Christmas cards — about 75 — by hand.

"I love writing letters. It's a lost art," she said yesterday during a luncheon at Brasserie Ruhlmann to promote her new film "P.S. I Love You," which opens on
the Friday before Christmas.

Letter writing features prominently in "P.S. I Love You" (Warner Bros.), which is
directed by New Yorker Richard LaGravenese and based on a book by 25-year-old Dubliner Cecelia Ahern. Ms. Swank plays a grieving woman who finds her way
through the letters her deceased husband has left behind. Lisa Kudrow and Dean
Winters play Ms. Swank's friends, who help her carry out the instructions in the
messages.

"The letters aren't about helping her remember him," Ms. Kudrow said before
greeting Ms. Swank with a hug. "It's really him trying to help her remember herself,
so she can survive his passing."

Mr. Winters is a big letter writer, but he doesn't do Christmas cards, he said as a
waiter leaned in to offer a chocolate dessert (he passed). Instead, he writes letters
on plain stationery to a small number of people with whom he feels he needs to get
in touch. "Every year it's a different combination of friends, family, maybe someone
I just met yesterday," Mr. Winters said. "Letter writing is very powerful."

So are free lunches. Guests at this one, organized by Peggy Siegal, included Fern
Mallis, Jill Roosevelt, Bronson Van Wyck, Jean Doumanian, Adelina Wong Ettelson,
Sandy Hill, Coco and Arie Kopelman, and Mariska Hargitay, who showed off photos
of her son stored on her iPhone.