Enough laughs in the first few minutes to sustain two or three average screen comedies: a music-video parody of the signature tune of a British bubblegum group of the Eighties -- "Pop Goes My Heart" by Pop!, from beginning to end -- with Hugh Grant shimmying, shaking, and pogosticking in a long-hair wig. Cut to the present, when he's "a happy has-been," finished with songwriting ("It's so time-consuming"), content to re-do the oldies for class reunions, amusement parks, whoever will have him. But then the world's hottest female soloist (a dimpled blond newcomer named Haley Bennett), a Madonna-esque amalgam of Eastern religions and Western decadence, commissions him to write her a song on spec -- she's indebted to Pop! for helping her through her parents' split at age seven -- and he begins an impromptu collaboration, and romance, with his temporary plant-waterer, Drew Barrymore. These are two actors with polished acts, and they both seem to be playing up to their own fan clubs rather than each other. The energy falls off right around the midpoint, but writer-director Marc Lawrence has his own sort of polish, and the image maintains a constant sheen. With Brad Garrett, Campbell Scott. (2007) — Duncan Shepherd
This movie is not currently in theaters.