In this charming romantic comedy, three-time Academy Award nominee Michelle Pfeiffer ("Dangerous Liaisons," "The Fabulous Baker Boys," "Love Field") and "ER" star George Clooney find that opposites attract whether they like it or not. Melanie Parker (Pfeiffer) is juggling single parenthood with a career as an architect. Jack Taylor (Clooney) is a commitment-shy newspaper cloumnist who only has his daughter every other weekend. When their kids miss a school field trip, Melanie and Jack agree to share babysitting for a day, resulting in twelve hours of hilarious misadventures with one unexpected twist.

This gentle comedy almost seems like something out of Hollywood's Golden Age, a movie that might have been made by a talented contract director, perhaps featuring Don Ameche and Claudette Colbert. But in fact it stars George Clooney as an investigative columnist for a New York newspaper and Michelle Pfeiffer as an architect. Both single parents, the two meet and bicker and develop a relationship over the course of a day while their young children play together. Michael Hoffman (Restoration) directs with a good sense of what's funny about harried caretakers and kids who do whatever they want to do. The story stretches out of shape a bit when Clooney's character has to rally to prove some point of corruption at City Hall; nobody involved seems quite up to making that subplot believable, but all that really matters about this very nice movie is the winning love story. --Tom Keogh

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