A slathering application of elbow grease in an effort to buff up the marmoreal screen image of Sandra Bullock. But no sort of luster can come through the layer-of-dust cinematography. The opening sequence, in which the heroine gets sandbagged on a Ricki Lake-like talk show with the news of her husband's and her best friend's mutual infidelity, while the couple's sobbing little girl looks on from the live audience, is so poorly conceived, written, played, and timed that you would assume it was a dream scene if it were not referred to repeatedly by outsiders. On the rebound, our heroine bounces all the way back to the Texas small town where she was Queen of Corn three years in succession, and after rolling through an anthology of country tunes on the soundtrack, several sticky stretches of slow-motion, a shower of fireworks, and a beaucoup-de-bouquets courtship from a down-home handyman with hidden talents as an architect (ladies' choice), she has every right to reclaim her crown. With Mae Whitman, Gena Rowlands, Harry Connick, Jr.; directed by Forest Whitaker. (1998) — Duncan Shepherd
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