After appearing in the mega-flops "Speed 2: Cruise Control" and "In Love and War," the logical choice for Sandra Bullock would be to star in another low-key romantic comedy, something along the lines of "While You Were Sleeping."
And on the surface, "Hope Floats" appears to be in that vein. Unfortunately for her (and the audience), the film is a weepy, downbeat melodrama, which doesn't play to either her strengths or those of director Forrest Whitaker ("Waiting to Exhale").
The movie also suffers from woeful miscasting and criminal underuse of some of the actors. For example, Gena Rowlands is given yet another charming eccentric to play, while obvious New Yawker Michael Pare is cast against type as a Texan.
Bullock stars as Birdee Pruitt, a former beauty queen whose life quickly crashes around her. Adding insult to injury, her husband (Pare) and her best friend (Rosanna Arquette) are having an affair, and they ambush Birdee with the details on a sleazy TV talk show.
Hurt and humiliated, she leaves Chicago and retreats to her small Texas hometown — to "hide out," as it were, at her mother's house.
But that act wears thin for Birdee's daughter, Bernice (Mae Whitman), and her mother (Rowlands), who have their own problems to deal with (a school bully and failing health, respectively).
Then there's Justin Matisse (Harry Connick Jr.), Birdee's childhood sweetheart, who has never gotten over her and who attempts to pull her out of her rut — if not rekindle their romance.
As already noted, Whitaker and first-time screenwriter Steven Rogers make the calculated error of playing the situations too dramatically. There's not nearly enough humor, and the whole thing comes off as depressing.
And Whitaker's clumsy scene transitions and staging doesn't help any of the performers, especially Bullock, who tries to charm her way through the movie rather than act.
Rowlands and Connick also try, but their parts are underwritten and one-note, while Pare's flickering Texas drawl is howlingly bad.
If the film has any saving grace, it's young actors Whitman ("One Fine Day") and Cameron Finley ("Leave It to Beaver"), who fare much better than the adults. In fact, if the film had concentrated on their characters, it would have been a decent little movie.
"Hope Floats" is rated PG-13, though it certainly could have been a PG. It features one brief violent schoolyard confrontation, a couple of somewhat vulgar jokes and one or two mild profanities.