Michael Hoffman (Restoration, Soapdish) directs Michele Pfeiffer and George Clooney in a beautifully contrived romantic comedy with a Manhattan setting that is exploited to the utmost. A veritable anthology of the perils of single parentingdemanding jobs, cellular phones, busy schedules, transportation hasslesthis 1996 film works a lot better than most Hollywood fluff because the leads are so good (and so well defined in Terrel Seltzer and Ellen Simon’s deft script), and because Hoffman is a pro at keeping everything in motion. With Mae Whitman, Alex D. Linz, Ellen Greene, and Charles Durning. (JR)