On paper, Welcome Home Roxy Carmichael, would appear to have a fair following wind blowing in its favour. The obvious star attraction of apparent workaholic Ryder aside, there is also director Abrahams, the middle one in the Zucker-Abrahams-Zucker trilogy behind Airplane! and The Naked Gun, producer Penney Finkelman Cox of Terms Of Endearment and Honey I Shrunk The Kids fame.
All it needed was a half-decent story. Unfortunately, a half-decent story is exactly what this film lacks, offering instead an entirely non-sensical tale of how teenage oddball Dinky Bosetti (Ryder) becomes obsessed with homecoming celebrity Roxy Carmichael (hence the name), convincing herself that she is in fact the long lost lovechild of the aforementioned Ms. Carmichael and the local gardener (Daniels).
The inevitable chaos ensues, except it is neither interesting nor funny enough to ever be worth worrying about. Being in the UK without any advanced screenings in an attempt to milk Ryder's popularity, wasn't able to save it either.