Without Julia Roberts as star, there isn't much doubt that this maudlin tear-jerker would have died in its infancy at the box-office.

Even the Pretty Woman can't do much with this unconvincing tale of a leukaemia victim (Campbell Scott), who hires the least qualified of the applicants (Roberts) as his nurse, just because she's attractive.

There's a lot of tealeaf-gazing thereafter by one of the characters, but you don't need a crystal ball to guess the (few) subsequent developments of a film that gets more embarrassing and tedious by the minute.

We all like a good cry, but this is ridiculous.