The central conceit of this movie must have made a great pitch -somewhere in the world is your perfect partner, but what if you never meet them? And director Winant and screenwriter Winnie Holzman were obviously determined to hang on to it, even when it became apparent that the movie clearly wasn't working.
When she was younger Gwen (Tripplehorn) saw Nick (McDermott) in a school corridor. The glimpse only lasted a few seconds but a connection was made. Years later Gwen is a writer and Nick is an architect. She eats in a restaurant designed by him, lives in an apartment block his company is planning to level, yet it seems their paths are never to cross. He's with a former child star (Sarah Jessica Parker), while Gwen is becoming a single woman with too many cats. Will destiny finally bring them together?
"Who cares?" is the answer, because the thin premise has become increasingly irritating as have the utterly unattractive performances from all concerned. Tripplehorn, woefully miscast, makes an embarrassing 17-going-on-35-year-old student, but that is nothing compared to the physical "comedy" she is called upon to perform. McDermott merely looks bored, while Parker gets the movie's few decent lines. Aniston only gets out alive because she's hardly on screen.
Director Winant and writer Holzman worked in television on the seminal Thirtysomething and My So-Called Life. This witless piece is therefore a hugely embarrassing blotch on both their CVs.