Because I Said So

In her mature beauty, her self-effacing wit, and the fashion-forward wardrobe that distinguishes her in fashion-backward Hollywood, Diane Keaton displays a flair that has won her an army of lifelong devotees. I’m a charter member. In Because I Said So, Keaton has unfortunately decided that self-caricature is as good as it gets to sustain the affection heaped on her after Something’s Gotta Give: Her clothes are as cool as ever, but her character, Daphne — a divorced mother of three grown daughters (Lauren Graham, Piper Perabo, Mandy Moore) who meddles neurotically in the love life of her youngest girl, Milly (Moore) — is an unbelievable mess. I mean actually unbelievable, a blur of romantic-comedy foibles (she’s a ditz at technology, afraid of romance herself ) nevertheless costumed with the confidence of a babe who’d give, say, Jack Nicholson a run for his money. (Stephen Collins subs for Jack as Joe, the guy who breaches Daphne’s sexual defenses and high-neckline garb while Milly cozies up to Gabriel Macht as Joe’s son.)

Daphne is the dumb girl’s Keaton of Hanging Up rather than the thinking woman’s Keaton of Something’s Gotta Give. And this slapdash, charmless, baldly boomer-chasing romantic comedy, directed by Michael Lehmann (Heathers) from a clunky, orgasm-obsessed script by Karen Leigh Hopkins and Jessie Nelson, is the lazy studio’s answer to a call for more age-appropriate entertainment for More magazine readers.