RETURN TO ME

RETURN TO ME

Directed by Bonnie Hunt. Starring David Duchovny, Minnie Driver

The comedy of the season has arrived! Fun fun fun! O joy, o bliss! Seriously, for all its putrid feelbland chirpiness, the unbelievably inoffensive Return To Me practically qualifies as a must-see, so inadvertently hilarious is the whole affair from start to finish.

By several miles the sappiest movie ever to see the light of day, its most memorable feature is the sight of the none-less-talented David Duchovny striving valiantly to demonstrate extremes of emotion, in the process repeatedly bashing his head against the ceiling of his own acting talent.

The background: Duchovny, whose wife has recently bitten the dust due to a massive heart attack, is forlornly sniffing around for a replacement, and eventually takes an inexplicable shine to a terrifyingly twee Minnie Driver, who simpers her way through the entire movie in truly blood-curdling fashion. The big twist is that heart-transplant patient Minnie has - you've guessed it - Duchovny's dead wife's heart beating in her chest, which bears a big nasty scar which the poor sad tosser hasn't noticed yet, even though he's engaged to marry her(!!!)

With all other parties thoroughly disgracing themselves, Duchovny's dog steals the show by default - a sad-faced, mournful Great Dane who nevertheless appears to possess infinitely greater emotional range and verbal articulacy than anyone else on display.

You would be perfectly within your rights to loathe and despise Return To Me, and it is undoubtedly a truly vile piece of work - but you may be pleasantly taken aback at the amount of pure entertainment it somehow serves up at its own expense. Consumer discretion is advised.