Return to Me

One heart, two loves is how this stop-and-go romance unfurls. Chicago construction mogul Bob Rueland (X-Filer David Duchovny) and his adored Jane Goodall-esque zookeeper wife, Elizabeth (Joely Richardson), are striving to build a new habitat for her simian subjects when a tragic car accident takes her life. The heart is donated to needy recipient Grace Briggs (Minnie Driver). One year later, at an Irish-Italian restaurant, Bob encounters Grace. He's on a tedious double date (with David Alan Grier) and she's working the floor as a waitress. Fate and something "bigger" pull at the two and an awkward courtship ensues. There's Grace's self-consciousness about her scar and Bob's fragile emotional state -- and the path to romantic bliss is further obstructed when Grace realizes that Elizabeth was the source of her cardiopulmonary transplant.

Actress Bonnie Hunt, who appears in a supporting role, also writes and directs. As a first-time filmmaker, she can't decide whether Return to Me is a straight-up love story or a romantic comedy. The laughs, which are far too sparse, are supplied with blazing aplomb by a quartet of Cupid-playing old geezers led by the venerable Carroll O'Connor (a/k/a Archie Bunker) and Robert Loggia.

-- Tom Meek