Cinema: The Story Of Us

Two nice folks, with two nice kids–and they all lived miserably ever after. So Ben (Bruce Willis) and Katie (Michelle Pfeiffer) are nearly splitsville. The Alan Zweibel-Jessie Nelson script, which wants to be true and funny, tries too hard to be either. There are a few moments (notably Pfeiffer’s sweet, blathery peroration) to remind you of when a Rob Reiner film was a treat and not a chore. But mostly the movie is like the marriage: good casting, golden promise, yet somehow a grating ordeal. The Story of Us means to describe pain; instead, it inflicts it.

–By Richard Corliss