"Joel is one of those people who see the world in a very warm, rosy way,” says the producer of Joel Hopkins’s romcom.

He certainly does in this film, which has Dustin Hoffman phoning in a performance as New York jingle-writer Harvey Shine, in London for his daughter’s wedding, and meeting up with Kate (Emma Thompson).

She is a fortysomething spinster with a smothering mother — and he begins to fancy her rotten.

The romance reveals how the two duds transform each other’s lives — and it would be more fun if you could possibly believe any of it.

Harvey is devastated because his daughter (Liane Balaban) has chosen to have her stepfather (James Brolin) rather than himself lead her up the aisle.

Flattered to be noticed after a series of awful blind dates, Kate nonetheless feels her comfortable no-risk life as a spinster is a safer bet than linking up romantically with Harvey.

The problem lies in a sloppy screenplay and direction that’s too slick to be credible. Added to that, while Thompson often makes acting look natural, Hoffman these days makes natural look like acting. Then there’s the languorous score ...

The warm and rosy whole is thus defeated on most counts — though Thompson occasionally transcends it all, possibly by changing the screenplay into her own words and sounding as if she’s real flesh and blood.

This is more than Hoffman can manage, even when making a sentimental speech at his errant daughter’s wedding reception.