Nick Hornby's best-seller about the disastrous love life of a guy who runs a record store (from which he barely scrapes a living) makes an uneasy trip across the Atlantic in this US version co-written by its star John Cusack, who's on screen nearly all the time.

The episodes in his life rather lack zip, his creepy cronies (Jack Black, Todd Louiso) are a shade the wrong side of unpleasant and his own incessant monologues to the camera grow wearisome to the point where you have to agree when he yells 'When is this gonna stop? '

However, Cusack's capacity for always getting wet is quite endearing and the whole end sequence is lovely if you haven't got fed up with it all long before.