And this is as good as it gets and it’s probably one of the most uninspiring trailers for a film I have ever seen.

It was an impulse grab. I was at the library after my writing group Thursday night to pick up a book on the history of The Fort (another page turner to go along with the dvd series we are watching on the history of Canada – and just as yet another aside, we American kids have been grievously misled on the role of Canada in the new world) and I saw it on the new release shelf. It had Matthew Perry prominently figured with the words dark, romantic, comedy, and even though that usually means – widow film – I took the bait.

The film began with a voice-over describing the main character’s descent into a perpetual state of feeling disconnected from himself – literally. Considering this man was a borderline OCD who was definitely emotionally raked over as a child by a slightly wacked out mother, he didn’t have far to fall, and when he got there, it was hard not to give him the same advice his father gave him,

“Son, just pull your socks up and get on with your life.”

Advice, not so strangely, that finally saves him in the end when he comes to the conclusion he is the only solution to his problem. Came as no surprise to me that the we are the answer to our own questions, dilemmas and upsets, but it sure took a long time for the filmmaker to get to the point.

As we watched the opening scene, or rather listened – and let me say I find voice-over distracting in a tell rather than show way – Rob remarked,

“Are you sure he isn’t widowed?”

But the widow connection streak was kept alive by the protagonist’s love interest, who it seems was dating a man who killed himself.

I love Matthew Perry even though he is a fat bastard now with no chin. I even watched that awful tv show he did with the guy from West Wing – you know, the one who is married to the mom from Malcolm in the Middle? I watched at least three intelligence insulting episodes, just because Perry is good. Even when the material isn’t.

But he didn’t rise above this one. Kevin Pollack steals every scene he is in and the Mary Steenburgen stuff, painfully awful.

If you see this out somewhere, run away. Far away.