Ol Parker has lifted more than his title from the lyrics of "Happy Together"; his directorial debut also shares with the Turtles' 1967 hit a 12-year-old's innocuous view of romance. Such juvenilia can work in the confines of a three-minute pop song, but Piper Perabo and Lena Headey don't harmonize nearly as well as Flo and Eddie.

Obviously taking the Richard Curtis playbook as his bible, Parker starts en route to a wedding, as Rachel (Perabo) speeds to the church where her groom, Heck (Matthew Goode), awaits. As does Luce (Headey), their florist, with whom Rachel falls madly in love at first sight. Or first peripheral glance, as that initial sighting is over in the blink of an MTV-quick cut, making the spark seem caused by some jarring chemical imbalance in the brain rather than a physical attraction.

Aisle Of The Dead: Matthew Goode and Piper Perabo get hitched to Imagine Me & You's pallid retread.

Then again, that would at least explain Rachel's sudden conversion to bi-curiosity, an option that seems never to have occurred to her prior to her wedding day. The character as written has apparently survived to adulthood without a moment's self-reflection, content to marry her longtime best friend simply because she's never explored any other options. Perabo's blank-eyed performance can't hope to add depth to a character as shallow as a screenwriter's page. Her sudden mad passion isn't nearly as illogical as the idea that such a dull woman could be jolted out of her complacency by this chaste affair.

The anemic romance is less a product of squeamish homophobia than of the incessant niceness of the cast. Curtis' rules apply again: We get the loutish but ultimately loving best friend, the shrill but ultimately loving mother, the father who is befuddled but ultimately loving and, when it really counts, wise. Not to mention the precocious 12-year-old girl, who in this company feels a tad superfluous.

All this ultimately dumps the film square in the lap of Matthew Goode, who in his second consecutive film (after Match Point) plays the last-to-know dope left behind by an adulterous relationship. In both cases he ladles on enough charm to avoid typecasting fears, here wresting the emotional center away from the purported leads, enough so that Parker awards him with the final shot.

In his private moments, Goode registers a level of hurt and confusion not achieved even in Perabo's most conflicted moments. It also becomes obvious that Heck is aware of more than he lets on, feigning ignorance in the hope that things will work themselves out, showing more passion, however passive-aggressive, for his marriage than Rachel has for her supposed amour fou. But when he is forced to succumb to the inevitable, his insular world opens up, and he is last seen boarding a plane for new opportunities. One hopes that his director has learned the same lesson, and will look further than Four Weddings and a Funeral for future inspiration.

Imagine Me & You Written and directed by Ol Parker A Fox Searchlight release Opens Friday at area theaters