'The Proposal' is all formula and no heart

The Proposal should have been called The Formula -- The Recipe would suggest too much flavor. It's been made according to the chapter in the box-office manual labeled "summer counter-programming."

Take one established female star ( Sandra Bullock) hungry enough for a hit to sign on to substandard material. Add a male up-and-comer ( Ryan Reynolds) who still has to prove that he's a leading man.

Proceed to wrap them inside a romantic comedy with several high-concept twists.

Hot-weather audiences flocked to The Devil Wears Prada a few years ago. So transform Anne Hathaway's executive assistant into a man (Reynolds) and compel him to become engaged to his boss (Bullock), the book-publishing equal of Meryl Streep's exacting magazine editor.

"Romcom" fans loved when Reese Witherspoon went all homespun in that Indian-summer hit Sweet Home Alabama. So when it turns out that Reynolds' character comes from a wealthy clan that controls the small town of Sitka, Alaska, make sure that Bullock's smug cosmopolite discovers the charm of close-knit rural life.

Put it all under the guidance of a director, Anne Fletcher, who is as slick as she is shameless. Voila! -- you've got a movie that makes no sense except as a bundle of career moves.

Bullock's Margaret Tate, editor-in-chief of a top Manhattan publishing house, proposes marriage to Reynolds' Andrew Paxton because the U.S. government is about to deport her back to Canada. What does it say about Paxton that he agrees to go through with it?

Reynolds carries some of the movie with stunned and comically stunning disbelief. He pastes an affable surface onto Paxton and then has the wit to use it as a mask. Even when the story turns super-sappy, he's both emotional and cool. Bullock, unfortunately, adopts an absurd robotic hauteur to impersonate a hard-driving career woman. She lets her natural warmth and humor seep through only when she pops a few old disco moves.

The movie never gives us any reason to buy the conceit that these two careerists grow to share love and lust instead of bloodcurdling ambition. We even have to take their passion for literature on faith. The one coup we see Tate accomplish as an editor is getting an interview-shy author to agree to sit down with Oprah.

The movie is so flimsy that when Tate and Paxton first kiss, director Fletcher uses sledgehammer music to convey that they're striking sparks. The dialogue spills over with tributes to family bonding and emotional authenticity. But Tate and Paxton only warm up as a couple after they run into each other naked.

At this point in the history of movies and TV, there may be no casting more tired and predictable than using that golden girl Betty White to play a dotty grandmother. Mary Steenburgen looks fit and appealing as Paxton's mother; the overall effect, though, is jarring -- she could be Bullock's older sister.

The film saddles Craig T. Nelson with the generally thankless role of Paxton's cold, distant dad. But when he feels like the only person who doesn't understand what's going on with Tate and his son, you feel like saying, "No, me too."

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The Proposal (Touchstone Pictures) Starring Sandra Bullock, Ryan Reynolds and Betty White. Directed by Anne Fletcher. Rated PG-13 for language and nudity. Time 107 minutes. One star out of four.