No Reservations (PG) ** (From This Is Local London)

No Reservations (PG) **

12:01am Thursday 30th August 2007 in

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Dir: Scott Hicks
With: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigail Breslin

For our non-special today we present this charbroiled romance featuring a hot-headed chef and her chilled underling. Catherine Zeta-Jones, playing Gordon Ramsay but with nicer buns, and Aaron Eckhart are the pair going head to head in a Manhattan restaurant.

Kate and Nick's friendship is aided by the niece (Abigail Breslin, Little Miss Sunshine) who descends unexpectedly and helps auntie see the error of her single, career-driven ways.

A remake of the German film Mostly Martha, and reminiscent of Baby Boom, the eighties comedy with Diane Keaton in the role of reluctant yummy mummy, Scott Hick's movie is a bland, achingly slow affair.

As Zeta-Jones huffs around the kitchen yelling "Pick up!" and "Where's my lamb?", she makes about as convincing a New York chef as she would a Belgian vascular surgeon.

There's precious little warmth between her and Eckhart, try as he might to sweet-talk her. "I'm not a dessert person," says the Jones girl as Eckhart whips out his Tupperware container. "You haven't tried my tiramisu," he coos.

One longs for a health inspector to swoop in and take swab samples just to liven up proceedings, but, alas, he never calls.