Gray Lady Down

In Hollywood's romantic comedies, the first slap always precedes the first smooch. Catch and Release offers a how-to lesson in the movie maneuver.

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You need an attractive but initially bickering couple, here played by Jennifer Garner of "Alias" and Timothy Olyphant of "Deadwood" as Gray and Fritz, respectively. They argue until the man says something particularly provocative, and the woman slaps him. She attempts to slap him a second time, but he catches her wrist. They stare into each other's eyes at close quarters, and then the kissing starts, because oh, their passion is a fiery one.

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For a story about overcoming grief and falling in love, Catch and Release leaves you gloomy and groggy. Writer/director Susannah Grant seems aware of the film's countless clichés but can't seem to avoid marching into them.

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The opening scene sets the tone all too well. We hear Gray's internal monologue at the wake for her fiance Grady, who died within days of their wedding. She mourns the fact that their last words before he left on a fateful bachelor-party trip were an argument over wedding arrangements: "Listen pal, no more nookie till you figure out where to put your mother's bridge club!" Yes, it must be painful indeed when the last thing you say to a loved one is a piece of phony dialogue more suitable for "Desperate Housewives" than human speech.

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As Gray mourns, she walks into a house with Grady's best friends: clean-cut, outdoorsy Dennis (Sam Jaeger) and wisecracking Sam (Kevin "Silent Bob" Smith). Grady's friend Fritz, a Hollywood-based director of commercials, also hangs around indefinitely, but Gray dislikes him at first because he had a quickie with a caterer at the wake, not realizing that Gray was in the same room. Gray gradually uncovers secrets about her too-perfect fiance's life, including a connection to Maureen (Juliette Lewis), a Los Angeles masseuse who dresses like a hooker and becomes part of the roommates' lives.

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Theoretically, audiences should care about movie characters for more reasons than the fact that they're played by good-looking celebrities (although that hasn't hurt the careers of Kate Hudson or Matthew McConaughey). Unfortunately, "Gray" serves as an apt description of our heroine's personality. At one point, Maureen suggests that Grady was relieved and boyish when away from Gray, suggesting that Gray has a control-freak streak, but we never get a sense of her flaws or personal traits before his death. Garner seems miscast as a mope, having to muffle both her appealing exuberance and her coltish athleticism from "Alias."

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Olyphant mostly stands around looking like a handsome actor, which is a waste, considering his hostile charisma in early roles such as Go and his portrayal of "Deadwood's" Sheriff Bullock, the angriest gun in the West. Reportedly, a subplot involving his character was snipped from the film's final cut, but for whatever reason Fritz's flinty persona and his affair with Gray feel seriously underdeveloped.

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Kevin Smith seems all too aware that, as the comic-relief character, he can just have fun, say "dude" and "totally" a lot and walk away with the movie, which is basically what happens.

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Catch and Release makes its strongest impression with its near-constant references to Celestial Seasonings herbal tea. When Sam first wears a T-shirt that reads "The power of herbs," we think it's just a Clerks-level marijuana joke. But it turns out Sam works for the company and makes a running "joke" about putting literary quotes on its familiar tea brands, until the product placement comes nearly non-stop throughout the film. It's sort of like how Tom Hanks' Cast Away amounted to little more than a Federal Express commercial. You even wonder if Garner's character is named "Gray" because she's sad, or as a subliminal plug for Earl Grey. But the "Sleepytime" tea may have been more appropriate, since Catch and Release works best at helping you catch some z's.