Director : Nick Hurran Starring : Brittany Murphy, Ron Livingston, Holly Hunter, Kathy Bates

Little Black Book is the kind of movie where borderline psychotic behavior is supposed to pass as whimsy, and we're meant to reward the ditzy heroine (Brittany Murphy) with kisses and love instead of a restraining order and a copious amount of mood stabilizers. An offbeat romantic comedy that could be subtitled I'm Stalking You and Your Three Ex-Girlfriends, Book was obviously at some point somebody's labor of love. There are too many plot twists, too many affectionate details (including the heroine's obsessive love for Diane Sawyer, Carly Simon, and the movie Working Girl) for this to have merely been a rom-com made by committee. And as it wends its way through its belabored, labyrinthine story – culminating in one of the more cringe-inducing finales in recent memory – it becomes more and more obvious that someone took this lovingly rendered screenplay and pretty much shit all over it. Welcome to Hollywood!

At its heart, Little Black Book does have an intriguing premise for a romantic comedy – what if it turned out you weren't the best match for your boyfriend? And that you really liked his ex? Would you bring them together? That's the dilemma facing young Stacy Holt (Murphy), a Carly Simon-loving, Diane Sawyer-worshipping wanna-be television journalist who isn't content to leave well enough alone when it comes to her dreamboat boyfriend Derek (Ron Livingston, making up somewhat for dumping Sarah Jessica Parker in Sex and the City). When her hockey agent guy goes on an extended trip scouting for new players (it's that kind of movie, where everyone has some overtly-detailed, wacky job), Stacy is egged on by sneaky co-worker Barb (Holly Hunter) to get the goods on the guy she's so ga-ga for. More and more intrigued by the notion of "peeking under the hood before you buy," Stacy hijacks Derek's Palm Pilot and breaks into it using Derek's dog's name as the password (not a bright one, that Derek). Working fast, she tracks down three main previous offenders: supermodel Lulu (Josie Maran), egomaniacal gynecologist/author/self-help entrepreneur Rachel (Rashida Jones – see what I mean about everyone's occupation being too unwieldy?), and aspiring chef Joyce (Julianne Nicholson), who Stacy promptly takes a shine to. Disguising her identity, Stacy slowly infiltrates Joyce's life and discovers her new friend's heretofore unknown connection to Derek – one that's still pretty strong, no less. And soon, Stacy finds herself odd-girl-out in this unintentional love triangle.

This is enough plotting for one movie in and of itself, but Little Black Book also grafts on a huge reality TV contraption to the whole shebang, as Stacy works for talk show host Kippie Kann (Kathy Bates, one notch above total embarrassment), whose Jerry Springer-like show provides a non-stop background to the main romantic plot. Screenwriters Melissa Carter and Elisa Bell don't so much splice the romance and job craziness together as crash them head-on into each other, resulting in a horrific mess that will have you cringing in your seat as poor beleaguered Murphy tries to wangle her way out of it. Murphy does manage to keep some of her dignity intact, but it's barely a performance and more like squeaking and squinting her way through a movie. Stacy is so insecure, so inept, and so, well, freakily obsessive that she's off-putting to both the audience and to anyone she encounters in the movie. At least she's not the movie's crowning embarrassment – that would be Hunter, who as a conniving associate producer pretty much takes her once-beloved character from Broadcast News and ingloriously stomps all over it in a performance that smacks of condescension and disrespect towards the audience, if not downright hatred. We used to like you, Holly – too bad the feeling's not mutual.

The movie's lone bright spot is the surprisingly incandescent Nicholson, who survives the misfortune of having her head grafted on to a thong-clad, airbrushed body in a number of computer photos that Stacy discovers. Immediately putting Stacy at ease, her Joyce is so warm, friendly, approachable and likeable that the audience immediately caroms towards her and away from the freaky Murphy. And her appearance in the rom-com dynamic does give you pause to think that a better, funnier, sexier movie could be made about a woman who schemes to get her current boyfriend and ex together. Then again, most any movie would be better, funnier, and sexier than this one.