MY MOM'S NEW BOYFRIEND

(US, 2007, d. George Gallo)

Did anyone years ago, while watching When Harry Met Sally, Sleepless in Seattle or You've Got Mail, ever fantasise about seeing Meg Ryan in a fat-suit? For those who didn't, here she is, larger than any anti-obesity ad. It's only in the first few minutes of this comedy (and a photo or two later) that she appears as a gross-out, but here she is.

Meg Ryan has made only a few films in recent years and is not up there amongst the top-drawer stars. Whether she should have said 'yes' to this film is a reasonable question. In the past she got by on a kind of giggly, girlish charm. Now, in her mid-40s, she obviously wants a change of image and has gone for rough and raucous (but still giggly – with the touch of the screech).

This is a romantic comedy which has some entertaining ideas but doesn't quite bring them to life. Antonio Banderas does his usual thing as a charming Mediterranean who happens to be an art thief and falls in love with the rejuvenated Meg. Colin Hanks (in a role that his father might have played twenty five years ago) is Meg's rather proper son who is an FBI agent. Selma Blair, in letting-her-hair-down mode, is his fiancee, also an agent.

When the son has to use surveillance on the thief, he listens in to his mother's escapades, unsettling for him – though he brings the case to a satisfying conclusion and promotion along with a romantic twist that we should have seen coming.

Mild – and we need a better Meg Ryan comeback film.