Hey, everyone. Capone in Chicago here.

I've been doing a lot of traveling lately, so I've been missing press screenings for stuff like HAIRSPRAY and THE SIMPSONS MOVIE. And I thought I was also going to miss the chefs-in-love, romantic-comedy NO RESERVATIONS from Australian director Scott Hicks (SHINE; SNOW FALLING ON CEDARS; HEARTS IN ATLANTIS). But lucky me, there was actually a screening of it I could go to so I didn't have to miss it. My fortune never seems to run out.

In all fairness, there are worse rom-coms out there than this slick redo of the far superior and more subversive 2001 Italian film MOSTLY MARTHA, and stars Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart did a sufficient job of entertaining me as top-notch chefs who land in the same restaurant. But both leads (as well as LITTLE MISS SUNSHINE's Abigail Breslin, playing Zeta-Jones' niece) are trying way too hard to sell what is essentially a lightweight puff piece masquerading as a sort of broken family drama.

Zeta-Jones plays Kate, who runs a tight kitchen at a high-end bistro run by Paula (the always reliable Patricia Clarkson, who is less reliable here in this shrewish role). As a result of the dedication to her job, she works late nights, gets up before the sun (the only way to get the best fish at the docks), and has no personal life to speak of. Even the sweet advances of her downstairs neighbor (played by Bug's Brian F. O'Byrne) are rebuffed for the simple reasons that she's always tired and can't add the complications of dating a person in her building to the rest of her life. The one bright spot in her life seems to be her out-of-town sister, who is driving into town to visit her with her daughter Zoe (Breslin). But on the way, the sister is in a fatal car accident leaving Zoe in the care of her apparently only living relative, Kate, the woman most ill-equipped to have parenthood dropped in her lap this way.

While Kate is attempting to sort out a way to balance a career and this unexpected motherhood, Paula hires new sous-chef Nick (Eckhart), who is every woman's dream. He cooks incredible meals, has good taste in music, is outgoing and lovable, is great with kids, has a floppy blond mop-top hair cut, and he looks exactly like Aaron Eckhart. Jesus, I'd date him!

He's mesmerized by the icy Kate, who thinks he's after her job and bats down every friendly gesture with any spatula within her reach. When you enter into a film like NO RESERVATIONS, you know how it's going to end, which doesn't necessarily or automatically make it a bad movie. Sometimes, witty dialog and great performances can go a long way, and this film has a pinch or two of both, but not nearly enough to keep an audience riveted. For one thing, there are too many unnecessary and time-consuming subplots. The downstairs neighbor gets way too much screentime for someone who doesn't have a shot at Kate. He gets reduced to the role of babysitter by the end of the film, and his clearly sincere feelings for Kate are just left hanging with zero resolution. Also, Kate's sessions with her therapist (Bob Balaban) are useless, and are clearly used in place of some sort of narration. Since the script isn't smart enough to convey Kate's feelings about some very heavy events in her life, we instead get her jabbering to her therapist, while she's essentially looking right at the camera. A storyline involving a pregnant woman in Kate's kitchen also is truly annoying.

But my biggest problem with NO RESERVATIONS is that it actually substitutes — on more than one occasion — music montages of Kate and Nick (and sometimes Zoe) hanging out together for actual conversations. I wanted to hear Nick's seduction technique. I wanted to know what these two supposedly intelligent adults had to say to each other. I was desperate to see how Nick wins over the still shell-shocked Zoe and gets her to come out of her shell and begin to get over the death of her mother. These should have critical moments in this story and they're completely and embarrassingly glossed over by Hicks. I have a feeling these scenes actually exist on a cutting room floor somewhere, but time restrictions probably forced these changes. It sure feels that way, and that's a shame because if scenes like those actually existed, my enjoyment of the film probably would have been more certain.

On top of the decidedly underwritten nature of the film, NO RESERVATIONS has quite a few main characters I'm not even sure I like that much. First Kate leaves Zoe at home alone when she goes to the restaurant; then she starts bringing her to the restaurant where she becomes the establishment's working mascot; then she leaves her with crappy babysitters. The filmmakers don't exactly make a good case for her becoming Kate's new mommy. Restaurant owner Paula pulls a few underhanded shots while Kate is out caring for Zoe. And Breslin's portrayal of Zoe is so maudlin and disaffected that I never really figured out why I was supposed to care about where or if she landed.

NO RESERVATIONS isn't patently stupid or filled with allegedly smart people constantly doing dumb things. Lord knows the romantic-comedy genre has seen plenty of those in recent months. Instead, it suffers from not being able to decide whether we're supposed to take it seriously or not. Peppy music montages don't belong in a serious film about loss and the tough battle to find happiness when a person in so deeply in pain. I'm a relentless fan of Eckhart's work, and I do believe Zeta-Jones can be a substantial acting force when the material is right (you need only look at Traffic to see that is true). But this film is ultimately a colossal waste of both their skills and time.

Capone