It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a single man in possession of a good fortune... would rather spend it on anything but a load of empty-headed balderdash spouted by sappy women and cardboard male stereotypes.

As if it weren't grating enough to be handed lessons in love from an author who was "engaged for a single night" and died a spinster, writer-director Robin Swicord then overlays her folly with horribly plastic sentiment and two-dimensional characterisation.

Take Sylvia (Brenneman), for example. She's all cut up because her rotten husband (the girthly Jimmy Smits) has found love with another woman. "Am I really that uninteresting?" she laments from under the duvet. Yes, love, you are.

Sylvia is consoled by her daughter Allegra (Lost's Maggie Grace), a bouncy lesbian whose Sapphic tendencies involve skydiving, rock-climbing, and sharing an unnecessary story about a retarded boy's penis while shaving her girlfriend's legs in the bath. Eeuw.

Then there's adamantly single Jocelyn (Bello) who is also grieving... for her dog. The four-legged funeral and wake mark her out as the kooky one. She desperately needs a man but no way is she interested in handsome science fiction fan Grigg (Hugh Dancy).

No, no way, no... No, she only chatted him up for dreary Sylvia.

And what of poor old Prudie (Blunt), the French teacher who's never been to France and now she probably never will because her husband is just a heartless... man! Pale and also uninteresting, Prudie is like Corpse Bride without the fun.

Nonetheless, she is drawn by the hunky charms of one of her students (Transamerica's Kevin Zegers). He is younger... a lover of the performing arts... more sensitive to her needs... (Bone a teacher?! Duuuude!)

And let's not forget the founder of the titular bunch of avid readers, Bernadette (Kathy Baker). Actually let's do forget her as her only character quirk is an interest in crochet.

It pains me to say it, Miss Swicord, but while your script is based on someone else's book, it has as much sense and sensibility as Pride and Prejudice's Mrs Bennet... and it is a sight more shallow.

Failing marriages that can be resurrected by the power of 'Persuasion' alone? What poppycock.

Of course men are insensitive and illiterate... in fact, it may make this the perfect movie for both her and him after all - because it lasts exactly as long as a football match.

Elliott Noble