text: There really is only one reason to watch this barely adequate and utterly predictable movie about an uptight chef Kate Armstrong (Catherine Zeta Jones) whose life changes when she inherits her orphaned niece Zoe (Abigail Breslin) after her sister is killed in a car wreck. And that reason is to watch Aaron Eckhart (Nick) who, with his floppy haircut and appealingly laddish attitude, looks good enough to slap between two slices of organic Pannini and eat with an olive oil and balsamic vinaigrette dip and a few finely diced sun dried tomatoes. He reminds me of Sean Bean. The thought that he might take his shirt off really was the only thing that kept me awake until the end. He removed his apron petulantly several times, but to my disappointment, never went further.<br /><br />I can't be too critical because I was watching it on pay per view at home, so it hadn't cost me the price of two movie tickets at least, and I was brought up to be grateful for small mercies. But really, this is Rom Com at its most formulaic. Zeta Jones gives a very flat, monotonous performance, she seemed utterly lacking in passion, (possibly due to the amount of time she apparently spent in the cold store at the restaurant? Thirty takes in there can't have been fun) and her face barely changed expression throughout the whole movie. Abigail Breslin was pretty good as the niece, she's such an appealing little girl that it's quite impossible to criticize her, and anyway I loved her in Little Miss Sunshine. Patricia Clarkson is always good value and I can't really fault her performance as the restaurant owner, because she seemed very underused, given what a good actor she is and how little she had to do here. But the whole thing is just so clichéd, much of the dialog banal, and the outcome so obvious. This is the cinematic equivalent of paint by numbers, and Zeta Jones and Eckhart generate little heat on screen.<br /><br />Nick likes Italian food (doubtless indicating his burning inner passion) and cooks to the sound of Puccini. His appearance in Kate's kitchen at 22 Bleecker (the restaurant's name) predictably ruffles her feathers but his uncanny ability to bond with her niece by cooking pizza and building a Bedouin tent in the living room, brings Kate around and, despite a few stumbles along the way, she ends up giving him her prized possession. No, not her honour. But her recipe for saffron sauce.<br /><br />I'm being very unfair here, aren't I? I mean Rom Com is Rom Com, and we all know what we are letting ourselves in for when we sign up. But does it always have to be so mind numbingly dull?