‘Must Love Dogs’ hits more than it misses

What the world needs now is a transcendent romantic comedy, something along the lines of “Breakfast at Tiffany’s” or “The Lady Eve” or “It Happened One Night.”

Gary David Goldberg’s “Must Love Dogs” isn’t it, but it will have to do until the real thing makes an appearance. Preview audiences have been eating it up, sometimes drowning out the dialogue with their laughter. Certainly the casting couldn’t be better.

What’s missing is that addictive sense of spontaneity that drives the best comedies and makes their contrivances not just acceptable but welcome. The movie is good-natured and cute, and it suggests a genuine compassion for people who are looking for love in all the wrong places (in this case, internet dating services). But there’s always a sense of calculation, of one-liners and characters being twisted to force a laugh. 

Quick facts Starring: Diane Lane, John Cusack, Elizabeth Perkins, Christopher Plummer, Dermot Mulroney Director: Gary David Goldberg Run time: 1 hour, 32 minutes MPAA rating: PG-13

As in most post-divorce comedies, there’s a montage of terrible first dates, ranging from the mildly amusing to the ridiculous. A woman who isn’t aging gracefully makes a date with a teenager who turns out to be even younger than he claims to be on-line; their first meeting seems orchestrated rather than natural, and the laughs feel cheap.

A desperate recent divorcee arranges, via e-mail, a date with a man who turns out to be her father. “This is disturbing on so many levels,” she says, and instantly you’re aware of a director-screenwriter who’s trying hard to make the line seem natural, even inevitable. It never quite comes out that way.

Best-known as an Emmy-winning sitcom creator (“Family Ties,” “Spin City”), Goldberg has an instinct for small-screen comedy that doesn’t translate easily to the big screen. His characters often sound like standup comedians, presenting a self-centered monologue rather than sharing space and repartee with other characters.

Fortunately, Goldberg has recruited a collection of actors who consistently draw attention away from the artificiality of the material and somehow make it play. Frequently they minimize the wordiness, using a twitch or a mumble or a gently raised eyebrow to make a point.

Best of the bunch is Diane Lane, a former child star who has made an unusually smooth transition to adult roles. She gives one of her most confident performances as a middle-aged pre-school teacher whose cold-fish husband has left her with a lowered sense of self-esteem.

John Cusack plays an equally lost boat-builder, newly single and addicted to melancholy viewings of  “Doctor Zhivago,” who courts her at the same time she finds herself infatuated with the promiscuous daddy (Dermot Mulroney) of one of her pupils. Elizabeth Perkins and Ali Hillis are her matchmaking sisters, while Christopher Plummer plays her platitude-spouting father, who was so attached to his late wife that he won’t take seriously a woman (Stockard Channing) who is falling for him.

The outcome is, too put it mildly, unsurprising. But with a cast this creative, and enough funny bits of business spread throughout the 88-minute running time (a late-night citywide search for condoms is the comic highlight), “Must Love Dogs” hits almost as much as it misses.

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