REVIEWED - RUMOR HAS IT . . .: OH GOOD, a period movie. Where's Keira Knightley then? Rumor Has It . . . is set in a simpler, less frantic era. These were the days when Jennifer Aniston still had hopes of forging a proper movie career. Kevin Costner had oodles of hair. Rob Reiner was a director you could trust. So much has changed since 1997.

The film takes place in that year because, presumably, the producers have decided that nobody wants to look at a dalliance between a woman in her forties and a man in his sixties. This wearingly dull, puzzlingly indistinct romantic comedy focuses on a Pasadena girl who believes she may be the issue of a brief fling between two of the people whose antics inspired Charles Webb's novel The Graduate. Since the book - later, of course, that iconic film - was published in 1964, Miss Aniston's character would, were the film set today, have to be at least 42. No. That won't be happening.

Never have so many talented people been quite so awful in one movie. Shirley MacLaine (sort of Mrs Robinson) is supposed to be sassy, but, instead comes across as plain mean-spirited. Kevin Costner (kind of Benjamin Braddock) slumps around drowsily, like a robot version of himself whose batteries have been put in upside down. Mark Ruffalo, allegedly playing the fiance Aniston abandons to investigate her colourful conception, seems to have been replaced by his simple-minded twin.

And Jennifer Aniston? Yet again this gifted comedian has been persuaded to speak lines from a script whose only proper place is wrapped round a cardboard roll next to the lavatory. Will she ever make the jump to grown-up stardom? Well, Jesus holds a place for those who pray . . . Donald Clarke