Pleasant but a bit HomeEc-ish

Rating: 5/10 (19 March 2006)

You won't be offended, in the least, by this film. It's very pleasant to watch and the story line doesn't require much dissection. Unfortunately, it doesn't offer much more either. It tries to be deeper than it is. The story's been told a million times before and better. Natalie Portman is the surprise here but her character starts to dull down by the end. And some of the love dialog gets pretty pretentious and trite. I might have given it a 6 had it not been for the annoying and unnecessary(and sometimes bombastic)addition of too many pop songs that seemed to be crammed into the film to fill gaps in action or dialog. It sometimes sounded like a commercial for VH1. The last scene was far too predictable for words.