Review: 'How Do You Know' is clueless

How do you know a film is boring? You fall asleep in it.

I started to nod off midway through “How Do You Know” and I still don't think I've recovered.

Sad, too, considering the film is by James L. Brooks, the guy behind “Broadcast News,” “Terms of Endearment” and several other holiday winners. This one, though, is so sluggish, so protracted you can't warm to any of it – even Reese Witherspoon and Paul Rudd, who make a charming couple.

She's an Olympic softball player who fails to make the national team. He's a businessman about to be indicted. Both are at personal low points. Both find each other and wonder if a relationship is right.

The concept works. It's just the execution that lags. Brooks (who wrote, directed and produced) constantly plays scenes on cell phones. (If you go, count how many times someone gets on a cell – it's unnerving.) That removes real interaction and stalls confrontation.

Even worse, when someone does have a face-to-face, it's never resolved. Rudd has to deal with his father's misdeeds. But every time dad (Jack Nicholson, no less) tries to talk, Rudd runs away.

Witherspoon's equivalent? That's Owen Wilson, a dim baseball player who doesn't want much more than incredible sex. She moves in with him but discovers Rudd satisfies her emotionally. She waffles. Rudd makes a move and “How Do You Know” lurches.

Witherspoon and Rudd are fine (in a “Goodbye Girl” way); Wilson is miscast and Nicholson is under-rehearsed. There are times when you think Nicholson is just reading lines from cue cards, which makes his participation worthless. (Who does he think he is? Marlon Brando?)

A neat moment with Rudd's secretary almost rouses the dead but a quickened pulse can't work miracles.

“How Do You Know” flops around like a fish in a boat. Eventually, it dies but the death seems like it takes forever.

Perhaps Brooks needed someone else to take a peek at his screenplay. Clocking in at more than two hours, “How Do You Know” runs longer than some relationships. Clearly, an intervention was warranted.