The pleasure to be had from Because I Said So can be reproduced thus: take a pair of pliers and, one by one, break your fingers.

True, it’s a chick-flick, so girls could probably stop at one hand. Fellas – you’ll need a friend to go the whole ten digits.

Following fellow Oscar-winners of a certain age Jane Fonda (Monster-In-Law) and Meryl Streep (Prime) into romcom hell, Diane Keaton joins the overbearing mothers club in this desperate, cliché-choked ordeal.

She is Daphne Wilder, the long-single parent whose mission in life is to see her three daughters married. She’s succeeded with Maggie (Graham) and Mae (Perabo). But her youngest, Milly (Moore), is turning out to be a dead loss.

(You can tell that Milly is a sad and lonely case because she has a goldfish and snorts when she laughs. Similarly, Maggie is the most successful because she’s a psychiatrist, and Mae is the sexiest because she has a lovely tush but virtually no dialogue.)

Always the caterer yet never the bride, Milly clearly has no idea what’s good for her. So Daphne secretly puts a personal ad on the internet to find her idea of Milly’s Mr Right.

(You can tell that Daphne is really a well-meaning old kook because she has a horny dog and keeps getting stuck on porn websites. Similarly, this must be a date movie because she interviews the unsuitable suitors in montage. Bad teeth... ginger hair... turbans... hilarious!)

Just when all seems lost, along comes smug architect Jason (Everett Scott) – to Daphne’s mind, a much better proposition than Johnny (Macht), that cute musician whose hat says "too cool and laid-back to be husband material".

Unaware that she’s being set up, Milly gets it on with Jason. But unbeknownst to Daphne, she's also getting jiggy with Johnny. Two at once – aren't guys like buses?! Which means she's bound to get run over.

All she has to do is decide between the rich control freak or the one with the hyperactive brat. But as a two-timing tart in nice girl’s clothing, she can’t.

Instead, she dizzily frets her way towards inevitable barneys with Daphne and the dupes. Meanwhile, the audience prays that someone will put them all out of our misery (though the scenes where Daphne loses her voice offer some respite).

Believe it or not, this trite and toothless embarrassment is the work of the director who made his debut with the deliciously scabrous Heathers.

But after Hudson Hawk, The Truth About Cats & Dogs and 40 Days And 40 Nights, Michael Lehmann’s inglorious slide shows no sign of abating.

It’s apt that a film stuffed with cooking metaphors should turn out to be as sorry and unappetising as a botched soufflé.

Elliott Noble