Grade: C

Verdict: Return to sender. Except for David Duchovny.

Details: Starring David Duchovny and Minnie Driver. Rated PG for mild violence and sexual situations. 1 hour, 56 minutes.

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Review: I could be mistaken, but I think "Return to Me" may be the first organ-transplant romance in history. (I don't imagine "The Incredible Two-Headed Transplant" can be called a romance.)

Anyway, in this movie, David Duchovny of "The X-Files," who's been telling us that the truth is "out there" for years, learns that the truth is actually "in there." As inside co-star Minnie Driver's chest, where beats the heart of his beloved first wife (Joely Richardson), killed in a car accident.

Here's the gimmick ... I mean plot. Poor, despondent Duchovny has trouble getting back into the dating scene now that he's widowed. His most meaningful relationships are with his best pal (David Alan Grier) and with his dead wife's gorilla (she was a primate specialist).

Meanwhile, poor Driver is also having trouble getting back into the dating scene, because she fears that her medical history will turn off potential suitors. Her closest relationships are with her best friend (Bonnie Hunt, who also directed) and her grandfather (Carroll O'Connor), who runs an Irish-Italian restaurant in Chicago.

Their tentative moves toward each other and true love are sporadically interrupted by scenes of so-called warmhearted comic relief proffered by O'Connor and his card-playing cronies.

Duchovny, who keeps swinging at the big screen and missing (anyone for a sequel to "Playing God"?), is actually rather wonderful here. He has the pensive, sweet romanticism of Harrison Ford's long-lost son. If he'd been matched with, say, his director (a union that Hollywood math, i.e. ageism, wouldn't allow), "Return to Me" could have been something quite special.

But our distaff star, alas, is Driver. In "Return to Me," she's meant to be adorably vulnerable and appropriately starry-eyed over Duchovny. Mostly, she's just there — swooning and overacting, as opposed to last summer's "An Ideal Husband," in which she was tart and overacting.

Lord knows, we could all use a delectable comedy-romance, it being April and all. But "Return to Me" gives us half of a romance (Duchovny) and a look at Chicago to rival Woody Allen's valentines to New York City. All they needed was The Girl.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service