Hugh Grant plays a has-been pop idol who finds new inspiration in the shape of Drew Barrymore in Music & Lyrics. It's yet another romantic comedy by Marc 'Two Weeks Notice' Lawrence and the filmic equivalent of elevator music, ie inoffensively bland and, at the same time, maddeningly monotonous. That pretty much sums up Barrymore's performance as well. The fact that she beguiles Grant with a song called 'Love Autopsy' only ups the exasperation factor.

It begins well enough with Grant sporting a Wham!-style mullet and doing the George Michael doe eyes in a classic 80s cheese pop video. Unfortunately, Alex Hunter is the Andrew Ridgely of the duo so years later, when he's offered a song-writing gig by chart-busting sex pot Cora Corman (Haley Bennett), he jumps at the chance. The problem is, he can't write a decent lyric. Enter budding scribe Sophie (Barrymore), the woman who waters his plants...

"SMARMY SELF-SATISFACTION"

The idea that someone who lives in a virtual shoebox would hire another person to water his plants is only one in a long and tedious line of off-key scenarios. Lawrence bestows Grant with plenty of witty one-liners (and some not so witty), but wry charm becomes smarmy self-satisfaction with a leading man who is actually quite happy to sell his soul to a Buddhist Britney clone. His plight becomes less involving with each quip while Sophie's constant flustering about the level of her talent smacks of self-indulgence. Grant and Barrymore just don't have the depth or chemistry to make you care. In short: flat like Milli Vanilli.

  WATCH: BBC Movies' Music And Lyrics video review

Music And Lyrics is released in UK cinemas on Friday 9th February 2007.