Australian helmer PJ Hogan seems to be ducking the success of his last movie, My Best Friends Wedding, here.
Theres little doubt that Rupert Everett was the best thing in that runaway hit, but when the lead female role downshifts from Julia Roberts to Kathy Bates, you understand that we are in personal project territory (Hogans wife, Jocelyn Moorhouse, co-wrote the script).
Indeed, the aimless plot seems to be based on odd concerns (mid-life ennui, celebrity homosexuals) that the director has picked up during visits to places (England, Chicago) that dutifully turn up as locations. Theres even a bizarre scene which apparently spoofs My Best Friends Weddings most famous set-piece (the Say A Little Prayer sing-a-long), as if Hogan is embarrassed by the whole affair.
To be fair, there are several good ideas here and some genuinely quirky characters, but the whole ramshackle enterprise singularly fails to hang together.