Chaos Theory: Romantic comedy. Starring Ryan Reynolds, Emily Mortimer and Sarah Chalke. Directed by Marcos Siega. (PG-13. 86 minutes. At Bay Area theaters.)
The best-laid plans of efficiency expert Frank Allen repeatedly go haywire in the delightful romantic comedy "Chaos Theory." By creating likable characters and putting them in situations that seem plausible, if a bit of a stretch, the film succeeds where others of its genre fail.
"Chaos Theory" also has the advantage of opening quietly in theaters without any hype to live up to. Completed last year, it sat on a shelf until now. The stall proves that, sometimes, Hollywood producers are too myopic to recognize a winner even when they made it. Possibly it got released only because star Ryan Reynolds proved a modest box-office attraction in "Definitely, Maybe."
By odd coincidence, both movies begin with an older Reynolds coming clean about the rocky love life of his youth, shown in flashback. Frank is in his 50s at the start of "Chaos" and in his 20s and 30s for the rest of it. Makeup artists do their bit to age Reynolds. He does the rest by adopting the confident bearing - a swagger, almost - of someone made wiser through experience.
Frank's future son-in-law is about to bolt from his own nuptials when Frank sits him down and proceeds to shake all the skeletons out of the Allen family closet. One flaw in Daniel Taplitz's otherwise perceptive and quite touching script is why Frank thinks revealing the truth about his deeply troubled marriage would save his precious daughter from abandonment at the altar.
The impulse is to cringe when you read that a director cut his teeth on music videos. In this case, though, the experience clearly taught Marcos Siega about pacing. "Chaos Theory" moves briskly along. There is no downtime.
Siega builds up to humorous moments and lets them seep in rather than dashing on. Making fun of Frank's compulsion to be precisely on time, his wife, Susan (the always lovely Emily Mortimer struggling to shed her British accent), sets their clocks backward (she meant to set them forward), resulting in Frank missing the ferry. Projecting warmth with her big Keane eyes, Mortimer makes Susan sympathetic, even though her joke results in Frank being late for his speech on efficiency. The sign outside the lecture hall with the new time slapped over the original one is an amusing sight gag. So is Frank's mad dash to the lectern, where he stays on message about how it's chaos out there and those who fail to control it are destined to be ruled by it.
Almost as if his words put a curse on him, nothing goes right from then on. An efficiency-expert groupie (Sarah Chalke of "Scrubs," all tarted up) attempts to seduce him with her lacy black lingerie. He deserts her in his hotel room and starts to drive home, unaware that Susan has called the room and was most unhappy to hear a female voice answer. Along a deserted road, he stops to help a driver in distress who turns out to be in labor.
Each of Frank's decisions turns out to have been wrong but in ways he never could have predicted. Your attention is riveted by the unexpected grief they bring. The to-do lists he scribbles change from forgive so-and-so to kill several so-and-sos, including himself.
Too many jokes concern Frank's occupation. But Reynolds never goes for the easy laughs. He's after the hard laughter that comes from recognition of Frank's justifiable confusion.
Maybe because they look alike, Reynolds seems to have inherited Ben Affleck roles. But he's far more pleasing to watch, looser and sillier, and may be headed to major stardom. (Perhaps in preparation, he's dropped his TV series "Two Guys and a Girl" from his resume.) Sparks don't fly when he gets together with Mortimer. But when the Allens' 7-year-old daughter is in the picture, they make a convincing portrait of a happy family. Watching that portrait disintegrate is funny and sad and all too human.
-- Advisory: Sexual content and language.
