"One Fine Day" is bedraggled romantic comedy for a harried age by STEPHANIE ZACHAREK in Michael Hoffman's romantic comedy "One Fine Day," George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer meet for the first time at the beginning of a day that includes gargantuan crises at each of their jobs, tangling with their respective ex-spouses and whisking a kid to the doctor after he puts a marble up his nose. As night falls, they finally stumble together for their big romantic moment — and fall asleep without having sex. Here's a new kind of date picture for audiences that think "Trainspotting" is just too depressing: the Dishwater Romantic Comedy, in which the most attractive leads of TV and movies are brought together so they can not have sex. Hollywood has a new message for exhausted moms and dads who've just spent upwards of $30, between movie tickets, babysitters and popcorn, to see the travails of their lives played out on the big screen: Like almost all of you, Middle America, George Clooney and Michelle Pfeiffer are too worn out to get it on! Now go home and feel good about yourselves. It's about time somebody told Hollywood it can shove its message the same place that marble went. It's not that romantic comedies should never touch on the reality of people's lives. There always have to be those little lines of dialogue you connect with, those moments when you're convinced that doofy mishap could certainly happen to you. (Even though you know you'll never climb a shaky ladder to kiss Cary Grant like Katharine Hepburn did in "Bringing Up Baby," can't you envision yourself bringing down a clatter of dinosaur bones with your own clumsiness?) But the Dishwater Romantic Comedy is an ugly mutant. It's got all the markings of the traditional romantic comedy — two attractive people meet, hate each other and spend the rest of the movie gradually thawing out — but at its core is a frozen-solid belief that we can never really be anything but losers. Instead of reaffirming, with wit and style and repartee, that every one of us can be transformed by romance, the Dishwater Romantic Comedy reaches out to the self-pity and lack of confidence in each of us, building it up so we'll be sure to laugh, with rueful self-recognition, at every pathetic joke. In 1995's monster hit "While You Were Sleeping," you knew Sandra Bullock was a "real" woman not by her dialogue or even by her boring job, but by the fact that her sweater sleeves dangled woefully down to her fingertips. "One Fine Day" does its dirty work without droopy sweater sleeves, but it's just as dismal, and it lacks the spark of craziness that lit up Hoffman's uneven but entertaining "Restoration." Jack Taylor (Clooney) — a muckraking columnist for a New York tabloid — runs into Melanie Parker (Pfeiffer) — a hardworking architect who can barely hold her frantic life together — as they're rushing to get their kids onto the ferry for a school field trip. They miss the boat, of course, and since neither can afford to miss work that day (Jack, to save his job, has to clear up a mess resulting from a column he wrote; Melanie has to give a presentation that could make or break her career), the two agree to take turns looking after the kids. Madness and mayhem ensue: Melanie's little boy shoves the aforementioned marble up his snoot; Jack's little girl wanders away from Melanie, sending her into a tizzy. Wedged in between the antics of these bratty, unappealing children — and good second-banana turns by Ellen Greene, Jon Robin Baitz, and Barry Kivel — Pfeiffer and Clooney do their best to kindle a romance. Pfeiffer, predictably, brings subtlety and sensitivity to her role, but there's no bite in her performance. She almost succeeds in convincing us that she's a woman with romantic hopes and dreams as well as a conscientious mother, but her character's limitless patience is enough to make real-life mothers want to scream. When she trips over something her kid left on the floor, causing her to crush the model she desperately needs for her presentation, Pfeiffer's Melanie shows barely a flicker of anger and assures the wide-eyed little moppet it's not his fault. The saintliness this movie expects of mothers is enough to frighten most of us into putting the diaphragm in every single time. "One Fine Day" sniffs around some pretty interesting issues — mainly, the way most workplaces are still willfully clueless about the flexibility parents sometimes need to care for their children — but ultimately ricochets away from them without any real humor or insight. (Melanie's boss is simply an ogre who hates kids — end of story.) There's lots of snappy dialogue in the script, written by Terrel Seltzer and Ellen Simon, but even though it moves the story along, it's ultimately forgettable. What's more, the movie tries hard to make us believe it's tackling nitty-gritty gender politics. Pfeiffer's stuck playing a woman whose fierce independence is signaled by the way she gets offended when a man holds a door open for her, but that's really just lazy shorthand for making sure we understand that Melanie is a frazzled, frightened, modern woman. The rakish, rumpled and effortlessly charming Clooney is the single big surprise of "One Fine Day." From what I've seen of "ER," I've never thought of him as much more than a self-conscious hunk, but his Jack Taylor is just the kind of smart, easy-going fellow every divorced single mother would want to meet. Early on, we see him eating at McDonald's with his kid, making it look as if he's pulling a French fry from his nose. Yeah, it's infantile — but damned if Clooney, with his relaxed goofiness, doesn't make this regular-but-sensitive-guy routine work. And that's why the end of "One Fine Day" is so disappointing. Even with all its ineptness, we fall a little for Clooney and Pfeiffer, and yet, just like you and me, they conk out at the end of the day with nary a bit of nookie. (And what's their excuse? They've just met!) Hollywood may think "One Fine Day" is the quintessential date movie, but I'll take "Trainspotting" any day. Give me heroin addicts who go for the gusto. At least they manage not to nod off during the important parts. Stephanie Zacharek is a regular contributor to Salon.