An unabashed girlie, gushing affair where the title tells you everything you need to know and more. Fluffy heroine Rosalee Futch (Bosworth) lives in a small town so resolutely stuck in the picket-fenced 1950s (despite the film’s alleged contemporary setting) that it makes Pleasantville look like a den of iniquity. She and feather-brained best friend Cathy (Goodwin) while away their lunch-breaks at the local Piggly Wiggly having deep philosophical discussions about Pringles while stuffing their faces with same and swooning over Hollywood meathead Tad Hamilton (Duhamel).
Evidently the ladies haven’t heard that Tad is a cad. Indeed, his penchant for fast birds and booze is threatening to capsize his glittering career. Thus his handlers (Lane and Hayes) devise a cunning win-a-date competition whereby this fallen thespian will be fixed up with a wholesome, toothsome girl in order to restore his good-guy rep.
Naturally super-smiley Rosalee wins, a plot development that greatly inconveniences her sarky boy-next-door secret admirer (Grace). But who will win Rosalee? This wonderful, witty local lad who has loved her dearly for twenty-three years? Or the preening, shallow Tinseltown womaniser? Think really hard now…
This sugary-sweet but palatable confection doesn’t add up to much or provide any surprises, but Grace makes for sparky company and there’s able support from such seasoned jesters as Martin Short and Nathan Lane. Lane, as ever, gives it socks and does his best Groucho, with blatant disregard for the occasional shabbiness of the material.
And then there’s Kate. Does she do twee terrifically well, or what? She simpers and golly-gees her way through the movie, staring in astonishment at everything she encounters (Oh my stars, it’s a hotel! Goodness, it’s a car! and so forth). Honestly, her tyrannically sunny disposition makes Gidget look like a scintillating succubus, and I do wonder if the poor girl’s cheeks don’t ache of an evening from all that inane grinning. Perhaps she’s had some kind of Joker-inspired surgical procedure and simply can’t stop?
Bitchy remarks aside, it’s pretty difficult to argue with her luminosity, and it should also be pointed out that Win A Date With Tad Hamilton is markedly better than director Luketic’s similarly slight Legally Blonde. Though as recommendations go, that’s hardly as glowing as the leading lady. Now if you’ll excuse me, I feel strangely compelled to go off and beam at passers-by while twisting one of my tresses repeatedly around my finger.

96 mins. cert 12pg.