THIS is a re-jigging of a 1991 rom-com of the same title by the same writer, Mark Andrus.

Michael Douglas plays real estate salesman Oren, an all-round curmudgeon and widower for a decade, father to an adult son who asks Oren to care for nearly-10-year-old granddaughter Sarah (Sterling Jerins) while her pop does time for a crime that never occurred and that he didn’t commit!

The film is mostly about the reconstruction of Oren, who lives in an apartment in a waterside building he owns. He’s trying to sell the house where he lived with his late wife for a grossly excessive price to fund retirement to go fishing in Vermont. Oren is so sorry for himself that it’s impossible for us filmgoers to feel sorry for him.

Living in the adjacent ground floor apartment is Leah (Diane Keaton) who sings in a local tavern and is inclined to burst into tears when singing a love song because she’s not over her late husband.

Oren doesn’t want to look after little Sarah; childless Leah offers to have her.

Readers with filmgoing experience will by now have worked out where the film is headed. Its best elements are Keaton, Jerins and the little movie that Sarah makes on her mobile phone showing a butterfly’s development from larval stage to flight. Keaton’s singing is by no means disagreeable. And to be fair to Michael Douglas, he brings credibility to the role or Oren.

At Palace Electric and Hoyts