Jack & Sarah

As English as it gets, this romantic comedy about a one-parent family is not without a modest charm. Jack (Grant) loses his wife in childbirth but commits to raising baby Sarah himself. The upside is the sympathetic reaction of young women, and the downside the busybody visits of his mother (Dench) and his wife's mother (Atkins). All is solved when he hires a nanny (Mathis), except that her proximity around the house brings a new cargo of woe. The tale avoids most of the fumbling man-and-baby stuff, but tries to beat the formula elsewhere in overly bizarre fashion. Who would believe a posh alcoholic tramp (McKellen), discovered outside sleeping in a builder's skip, pressed into service as a butler? Yes, the film is thesped to the hilt in the minor roles. Grant is very good at conveying his love for his baby and his impatience with family interference, and possibly only stretched when it comes to being enamoured of the American nanny, an intensely dislikeable bill of goods. Passable.