Yes, It's Warm-and-Fuzzy Movie Time

Writer-director James L. Brooks (“As Good As It Gets,â€� “Terms of Endearment,â€� “Broadcast News,â€� and many TV sitcoms) has always been something of a cinematic Rorschach test. He makes movies like my Jewish grandmother ladled out matzoh ball soup, aiming straight for the soft spot in your stomach — and heart.  

   Whether you like them or not depends a lot on how soft your spot is and how quickly you get filled up.

   Brooks’ latest romantic comedy, “How Do You Know,â€� is, well, as good as it gets — for a Brooks movie.  Which is to say, it’s long (two hours!), adorable, stuffed with schmaltz, lumpy and uneven, full of wonderful, touching moments, leavened with a bit of satiric acid, and ultimately satisfying.  After all, what makes a romantic comedy work is when you’re rooting for the sweet, goofy leads to finally realize their love, give in to it, and get together in the end.   It happens here, and you’re liable to walk out with a smile on your face, as I did.

   Lisa (Reese Witherspoon) and George (Paul Rudd) are two lost souls, adrift and facing premature midlife crises.  She is an Olympic softball star who has been cut from the team for getting a step too slow, and he is some sort of businessman (it’s never totally clear what kind) who finds himself under federal investigation for cooking the books of his father’s firm (played by Brooks’ favorite Jack Nicholson).

   At the same time she is meeting George on a blind date, Lisa is deciding to shack up with her off-and-on boyfriend, a superstar major league pitcher named Matty (Owen Wilson) who lives in a gilded penthouse.     

   How she negotiates this budding love triangle is the movie’s basic premise.

   One of the pleasures of “How Do You Knowâ€� is that you find yourself rooting for all three of them — and for every minor character in the movie, too. For that, credit Brooks’ uncanny ability to elicit superlative performances that bring out his actors’ truest selves and innate warmth, and to match them perfectly with their characters.

   Rudd has always had an off-center charm that comes to the fore here, and Witherspoon gives a heartfelt turn. But the real stand-out is Wilson, who drolly inhabits his part, a gentle sendup of the professional athlete’s overstretched libido.  (My favorite line, when Lisa knocks on his door and announces herself by her first name, is his matter-of-fact response: “Can you be more specific?â€�)

   Less successful is Nicholson’s typically irascible dad, Charles, played with over-the-top scenery chewing and a distressing amount of huffing and puffing. (You start worrying that the portly Jack is about to have a real heart attack on the set.)  

   Kathryn Hahn, as George’s secretary and best friend, simply swallows the scenery whole with her facial gymnastics.  Far better is Tony Shalhoub (“Monkâ€�) in a much-too-brief cameo as a therapist who dispenses some valuable advice.

   The uneven and lumpy parts include a terribly dull, disjointed first 20 minutes — if you can make it past that, you won’t regret it, and some odd, undigested bits, such as when Charles goes on a bizarre rant about bribing Egyptians, or something to that effect.

   Some critics will no doubt ask why Lisa would fall for the relatively hapless George, or bash the film’s regressive gender politics: that Lisa could actually resolve her core problem, the loss of her storied softball career, other than by finding a man.

   I suppose if I didn’t have that soft spot, I would, too.  

   But if Brooks has one signature talent, it’s the ability to create an escapist movie world that works on its own terms of endearment.

   “How Do You Knowâ€� is rated PG-13 for sexual content and strong language.  It is playing at The Moviehouse in Millerton and elsewhere in the region.