How Do You Know

Remember how Mel Brooks and Woody Allen were always funny, then it suddenly stopped, and their styles went out of touch? It looks like the same thing is happening to writer/director James L. Brooks, whose ability to fashion intelligent, funny romantic comedies are definitely diminishing. Reese Witherspoon is awful as Lisa, a professional softball player dealing with career turmoil and boy trouble. Witherspoon has never looked and sounded this uncomfortable; she’s totally lost in the Brooks universe. She can’t deliver a single line of dialogue and make it sound “real.” Paul Rudd and Owen Wilson work hard as the love interests, but the convoluted plot and lost female lead are no help. Jack Nicholson stops by (as he often does in James L. Brooks movies) with one of his career’s more lifeless characters. It might be time for Brooks to bring in a co-writer.