Too saccharine to be true

ONE would have to be very young and naive or plain insane to think that by studying someone's Facebook likes and dislikes, one could somehow hew, hammer and hone one's personality into becoming the very thing that someone is searching for.

But that's exactly what Sam (played by Justin Long) does in A Case of You when he meets Birdie (Evan Rachel Wood), a perky pixie-faced barista. Not only is she beautiful and makes great coffee, she also laughs at all his jokes - the nervous, stuttering Woody Allen type that, incidentally, has long lost its screen appeal.

Sam scans her Facebook profile and finds out that she loves French cooking, guitar-playing men, Joan Baez songs and Carlos Castaneda's bible for hippies The Teachings of Don Juan: A Yaqui Way of Knowledge - the perfect hipster list if there ever was one.

So off he goes to learn French cooking, the guitar, Joan Baez songs and the New Age teachings of Castaneda. When he shows up at a theatre to deliberately bump into her, he tells her he plays the guitar and they soon start to date.

Now, anyone with dating experience knows that pretending to be someone you're not can only doom you and the relationship in the long term. You can maintain the charade for a time but it always catches up with you.

Unfortunately, 30something Sam must have missed that lesson in his 20s. And so did A Case of You's producers in the last millennium. So what the audience gets instead is a perfect romantic fantasy in which the very sexy Birdie falls deeply in love with very nerdy Sam. Eventually, Birdie discovers his ruse, but she quickly forgives him and everyone dances - yes, they literally dance.

Maybe, this writer is cynical. Maybe he doesn't know a single relationship in which nothing bad ever happens. But a movie strung together by an endless series of adorable, aww-shucks couple moments feels somehow false and hollow.

When one watches a "stop the bomb and save the world" blockbuster with computer-generated actors, one knows to suspend one's disbelief and enjoy the popcorn. But when a low-budget romantic movie tries to portray love in earnest, it should at least strive to show you something genuine and enduring about love - and not just the cute, easy parts.

Apparently, the producers asked legendary musician Joni Mitchell if they could play her wistful 1971 love song A Case of You in the movie. She wisely declined.

Rating: C-