CATCH AND RELEASE [PG-13]
Leave it to button-cute Jennifer Garner to make a story about death appealing. The versatile former “Alias” star plays Gray, a young woman mourning the death of her fiancé when she connects with Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), one of his best friends. Further entanglements come when another friend, Dennis (Sam Jaeger) falls for her, and when Maureen (Juliette Lewis), a self-styled holistic massage therapist, arrives with a little boy in tow, who may or may not be the dead fiancé’s son. In her directorial debut, Erin Brockovich and In Her Shoes writer Susannah Grant does a fairly good job making it all play well, even if it all feels a little too pre-fab and uneven in tone. Kevin Smith is funny, even if his character’s suicide attempt is not very believable, but hey — it kept him busy long enough to stave off a Clerks III. The soundtrack is decent (Joshua Radin’s “What If You” is just beautiful), even if from time-to-time, the narrative relies too heavily on a musical cutaway. –Robert Newton