"A Lot Like Love"

Directed by: Nigel Cole

Starring: Ashton Kutcher and Amanda Peet

Rating: PG-13 (for mild language, brief nudity)

Running time: 108 minutes

Best suited for: the modern hopeless romantic

Least suited for: the Doris Day/Rock Hudson retro rom-com fan

Acorn’s Rating Guide:

My wife liked this one more than I did. I, however, am the trained professional, skilled in the nuance and subtle textures of the major motion picture. Then again, she is the hopeless romantic and thought the story rang true.

True, perhaps, but too familiar? "A Lot Like Love" is being touted as this generation’s "When Harry Met Sally." Well, it is. But when did redundancy become a marketing tool?

Because "A Lot Like Love" is also like "Four Weddings and a Funeral," complete with an endearing deaf brother. It’s also like "Serindipity" (a phone number is offered for some chanced distant encounter) but without the charisma or the hopeful anticipation. There’s even a sad whisper of Jenny—played by Robin Wright in "Forrest Gump"—in the character of Emily (Amanda Peet), a troubled and seemingly tortured soul.

Ashton Kutcher plays Oliver, the naive foil to the bohemian Emily, whom Oliver chances to meet on a cross-country flight from L.A. to New York. Their encounter is fleeting and a bit contrived, but one senses a spark of two lost souls flirting with destiny. Yet when they part, it seems a case of two opposites clearly not attracting.

When they meet again, three years later, Oliver’s much the same, but Emily has made great strides in personality development. She’s in love (not with him), and he’s following some self-inflicted Great American Plan—build a career, buy a home and find true love, in that order. He’s stubborn that way, and I found the character trait frustrating. I’d have suspected that, to the avant-garde Emily, Oliver’s egocentricity would seem roughly akin to poison. But their spark remains.

They part again, although fate throws them together several more times, and gradually they begin to realize their similarities outweigh their differences.

My biggest problem with "A Lot Like Love" is that Oliver and Emily find each other only at their most desperate times. Each plays the other’s last resort through most of the film. My wife tells me that life’s like that. Content people don’t necessarily need fate to repeatedly whack them together, like some exasperated cosmic matchmaker, until they blink the mental haze away and realize each other’s charms.

The film portrays Oliver and Emily as running out of chances, out of happiness, only to realize that happiness has been in front of them both all along, waiting to bloom.

Filmmakers have recently attempted to stretch the envelope in telling this particular tale. Yet with recent, brilliant offerings such as "Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind" and clever ones like "Garden State" already in the can and available on DVD, "A Lot Like Love" strikes me as perhaps a bit too ordinary, lacking any adequate hook.

There are some admittedly sweet moments in "A Lot Like Love." Amanda Peet sparkles. I’ve been a fan since Peet portrayed a perky hit-woman in "The Whole Nine Yards." And Ashton Kutcher’s goofy charm is beginning to grow on me. When Oliver and Emily aren’t so damned depressed about one thing or another—when they actually have fun together—the film improves.

But, as my wife reminds me, love isn’t always fun and frivolous. So if you like your rom-coms with a healthy side dish of pessimism, allow yourself another acorn and enjoy "A Lot Like Love." The hopeless romantics will feel the pleasure amidst the gloom.

In a nutshell: Lacking the upbeat tempo of the old-fashioned romantic comedy (not necessarily a bad thing, mind you), and the freshness of newer rom-coms, "A Lot Like Love" occasionally bogs down in a formulaic story of two lost souls who can’t quite find each other but can’t quite lose each other either. It has several good moments of its own, but too many others are borrowed from earlier, better flicks.