As always, I find it a struggle to delineate the plot myself, so I leave it to IMDB (methinks there really is a skill to condensing a film to a sentence or two): Jenna is a pregnant, unhappily married waitress in the deep south. She meets a newcomer to her town and falls into an unlikely relationship as a last attempt at happiness.

Keri Russell plays the role that Ashley Judd would have locked up a decade ago, and handles it well enough, though her face belies a mind that strikes me as a bit too ponderous and intellectual to be entirely believable here. Cheryl Hines plays the obligatory sassy and country-fried soul sister Becky, and Adrienne Shelly plays the awkward and sweet Dawn. (But please: can we have a moratorium on writers who insist on handling the neurotic/goofy duties themselves, in that egotistical "look how much cool I can afford to stifle" manner? *cough*TinaFey*cough*). Unfortunately, Shelly has a tin ear for Southern dialogue (just as I suspected: I check her IMDB page and see that she is a Russian Jew born in Queens) and so there are a number of clunker lines that just drop to the floor - though Hines at least pours out enough attitude to save a couple of her moments. They say you should write what you know (and given the current trend of TV shows made into movies, I have an untapped career in Hollywood) but so many of these coastal industry types are just certain that all you have to do is leave the g off any participle, lift a few regional epithets, and ta-da! Instant yokel. Suggestion: leave the Southern characterizations to people who've actually lived there (e.g. Mike Judge).

Shelly also jots back and forth between varying levels of realism in her direction. Jenna's romantic scenes with her secret love are played to almost slapstick proportions for the bulk of the film: Shelly uses a swirling camera perspective around the couple for their embraces, infusing them with comic melodrama. But it conflicts with the downhome style with which she started the film - especially since she switches to a gauzy, Bridges-of-Madison-County style toward the end. Same goes for Jenna's run-ins at various points with harried mothers and their brats (feeding her fear of her own impending motherhood). These scenes are played so over-the -top and out-of-place that you have no idea what kind of movie you are supposed to be watching. If you want to make a "quirky" comedy, go ahead... but then don't imply we're getting "slice of life". You can have your cake but you can't eat it too.

It seemed for a while that, despite this juvenile one-dimensionalism of the South and the scatterbrained direction, there might just be hope for this movie. Jenna's husband was given a few legitimate moments of near-sincerity, and it's clear he would be hopeless without her. Kerri Russell's expressions were cryptic enough to almost keep you guessing as to what her final decisions would be. And she conveys enough genuine apathy about her future child that you wonder whether you might be seeing something unique in the genre. But there are so many inherent weaknesses written into the movie that it ultimately dives headlong into failure.

The most significant flaw in this effort hit me not quite halfway through: all the characters and situations are being written into dead-ends, and if you give even a split-second's thought to it, you can figure out EXACTLY where this movie is going. Even if the acting performances were superb, there was no hiding this fact. And while that in and of itself might not be a problem, the ending is so much pseudo-feminist posturing, leavened with fairy tale saccarine bullshit, that you almost want to puke that you've given the movie so much credit to that point. To that extent, I'm not sure whether describing the ending qualifies as a spoiler, but I guess I'll hold back. Just... understand that if you decide to go see this movie, there is nothing that will ultimately surprise you, and in that sense, this doesn't qualify as art house fare in any way. This is utterly predictable Hollywood pap, and Adrienne Shelly better not entertain any flattery to the contrary. Don't let the movie's exhibition at Angelika fool you; it has about as much "indy" credibility as Where the Heart Is, Sweet Home Alabama, or Fried Green Tomatoes.

Well... at least this didn't have Kathy Bates in it. Little victories.