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'Must Love Dogs' is routine romance

In what science-fiction world could Diane Lane, one of Hollywood's most alluring women, possibly be unable to draw the attention of the human men who throng around her?

Warner Brothers Pictures 'Must Love Dogs' 2 out of 5 stars Director: Gary David Goldberg Starring: Diane Lane, John Cusack, Elizabeth Perkins, Christopher Plummer, Dermot Mulroney Run time: 98 minutes Release date: July 29, 2005 Rating: PG-13 for sexual content. See showtimes On the web Official movie site View the trailer    Trailers require Quicktime Rate "Must Love Dogs"   Go see it   Make it a matinee   Wait to rent   Don't bother Voter Limit: Once per Hour View Poll Results

Even accepting the tired conventions of romantic comedy, where all of us are incomplete until fitted out with True Love, Lane's desperation here rings unusually false. A recent divorcee — she's been single for eight months, her sister gasps — the preschool teacher shuffles through lonely supermarket aisles, fluffing her hair for single men who won't give her a second glance.

Plausibility will be a problem again later, as our heroes invent ways to keep from clicking until the last act, but until then: Lane's sister (the enjoyably sassy Elizabeth Perkins) shoves her into the world of online dating. Among an assortment of comical rejects and Romeos, one suitor piques her interest: John Cusack, whose character might well be extrapolated from the teenager he played in "Say Anything" — almost creepily so. He's a sensitive guy (favorite movie: "Doctor Zhivago") with a quirky passion for an arcane hobby, the construction of all-wood rowing sculls. As Cusack rambles about their superiority to impersonal, plastic watercraft, you just know he's the man for Lane.

Amazingly, Lane takes a while to reach this conclusion — letting any little thing push her back into an increasingly ugly campaign of Internet matchmaking. Every 20 or so minutes, the screenplay gives her a little speech so she can explain to a sister, a friend, or an incredulous audience just what is keeping her from romantic fulfillment.

When this routine exposition runs its course, the filmmakers finally remember the movie's title — out come the dogs in the third act, to bark cute objections to their masters' cluelessness. "C'mon girl — I think he could be the one!" Lane urges as she makes a last-minute attempt to get a man's attention. The dog's dialogue rings truer: Woof.