"Mr. Wonderful", predictable and obvious like most films of this genre, tells of a NYC hard hat electrician (Dillon) who tries to marry off his exwife (Sciorra) so he can put his alimony money toward his stake in a bowling alley. The film received several good reviews and works on many levels where similar films fail. "Mr. Wonderful" has an excellent cast, doesn't get too sappy, is well crafted and reasonably smart, and has a fresh and fun kind of "feel" to it. An enjoyable watch for romantics in need a break from hardcore drama.

Matt Dillon is a divorced, working-class New Yorker who pines to chip in with his buddies and buy a bowling alley. The thing holding him back is that he is disgorging money to his ex-wife Annabella Sciorra. Dillon is also hooked up with a nurse, Mary Louise Parker, while Sciorra has bonded with her professor William Hurt, who, lamentably, is married.

I ask you -- the experienced movie-goer -- is it necessary to spell out what happens at the end? Not if you've seen "The Awful Truth" or any of the innumerable others that wind up with the estranged couple realizing that they were really meant for each other all along. The only alternative, and it was fashionable for a while, was for the wounded wife to find empowerment in her singlehood, as in "Unmarried Woman." The story was written by women and directed by a man, and so the perspective of both genders is rather neatly represented. The bits of symbolic interaction, the kind that women pick up and men blunder over, are nicely captured in the script. A little hackneyed here and there, as during Parker's dismissal of Dillon, but overall a nice job.

The director adds an understanding of male companionship, of men stifled in their ability to express emotions other than lust and rage. And he knows how much men of Dillon's background treasure their Vettes. Here, the dialog is sometimes inept. A friend of Dillon's, Pope, is in love with a young woman named Marie. (The central figures are all Italian; the WASPS are on the periphery.) "I doan know how I feel when I see Marie! I mean, she might be 50 feet away. Maybe she's just brushin' her hair or somethin'. I mean, I doan know. My stomach gets dis HOLLOW feelin'. I get all kinda JUMPY, if you know what I mean." Well, I may or may not know what he means, but I know that working-class men DOAN TALK DIS WAY. Here's how the dialog would go. Dillon: "Hey, you still wit Marie or what?" Pope: "Yeah. I tink it's getting' deep." If you take that verbal clumsiness away from these guys, you might as well take their cojones while you're at it.

It was all pretty familiar, if intermittently amusing. Here's the thing that surprised me. Mary-Louise Parker's performance as Dillon's sometime girl friend who finally realizes that she can do better with somebody who cares more for her than for his ex wife or his car. She's quite good -- and in a slurpy and uninspiring part, too.

No one wants to sound like a sexist but I'm compelled to point out, speaking to you as your psychologist, that men's and women's brains are rather different. That's not even to mention their hormones. I won't get into detail, but this biological difference is reflected in their interactional styles. I refer you to any of Deborah Tannen's books on the subject, as much as I hate to. (She knows how to cut men off at the knees while retaining her deniability.) Anyway, I think women would enjoy this film more than men. The men will squeeze some enjoyment out of what is likely to have been the director's contribution.

I wish Mary-Louise Parker had been on screen more often, here and elsewhere, and not stuck in the victim role so repeatedly.

Mr. Wonderful is well cast and well acted, though predictable from the outset.

The story you've seen 100 times, other than that I have nothing negative to say. It's slightly better than you'd expect. Mary-Louise Parker alluring.