Branagh shows us the comedy of a man who is too clever to understand that in the guise of dreading fatherhood, he is really at war with how much he longs for it.

That's a lot just to justify a cute title, but cuteness is the engine driving the slight, obvious but occasionally very funny film.

Reminds us that when it comes to comedy, it's all in the writing. Mr. Kalesniko's satirically barbed screenplay, whose spirit harks back to the comic heyday of Blake Edwards, stirs up an insistent verbal energy that rarely flags.

This slight slice of L.A. life is distinguished by two fine, subtle performances. Redgrave is quietly heartbreaking-- Penn accomplishes the daunting task of revealing the spine beneath Melanie's sweet-natured tolerance of her perpetually disagreeable husband.

Gets most of the big things wrong and almost all the little things right. For two-thirds of its running time, it's a nasty little delight with an amusing and curmudgeonly central character.

While the direction is a little anonymous and could use some verve, the comedy-drama gets by thanks to a solid script, witty dialogue and engaging performances.

Without Branagh's pitch-perfect comedic skills the entire movie could have been crushed under the avalanche of quips and wisecracks tumbling from Kalesniko's too-clever-by-half pen.

A movie with a lot on its plate, but nothing interesting on its mind.

Fact is, there is nothing feloniously awful about the whole thing, but the laughs are tepid and too infrequent.

A dreary title for an even drearier picture.

A pathetic wallow, first in misanthropy and later in sentimentality.

After missing the film on the small screen the first time around, I recently watched it on video, and can only conclude that my screen wasn't small enough.