'UP CLOSE' REALLY NOT ALL THAT PERSONAL.

Byline: Amy Dawes Daily News Film Critic

Somewhere out there, perusing the romance novels at supermarket book racks or channel-surfing the daytime soaps and dreaming of an escape from routine, there may be an audience for this soapy romantic drama about the life of driven, glamorous television newscaster Tally Atwater. Perhaps it's even a big audience.

But tougher-minded folks will be disappointed by this bloated production, which despite its prestige casting (Michelle Pfeiffer and Robert Redford), prestige writers (Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne) and prestige director (Jon Avnet, who spun gold from the far more unconventional material of "Fried Green Tomatoes"), lacks a compelling point of view on its characters or the TV news medium they inhabit, and - worse yet - lacks the romantic heat to make up for it.

The movie may be called "Up Close and Personal," but it's basically an arm's-length affair.

The tale traces the rise of Sallyanne Atwater, a Reno, Nev., waitress and beauty contest winner so determined to better herself that she puts together a fake video reel of her so-called newscasting experience.

It lands her a job at a Miami station, where blunt, casually critical newsman Warren Justice (Robert Redford) allows her to make coffee and fetch his dry cleaning, until she persuades him to give her a shot at doing the weather.

Her tryout's a disaster, but Justice (that name!) spies real on-camera potential. "She eats the lens," he declares. (That dialogue!) They used to say, "The camera loves her," but this, apparently, is the more aggressive '90s.

After changing her name to Tally ("sounds better on camera,") Justice becomes her mentor and advocate, grooming her out of her chartreuse miniskirts and into more appropriate togs, coaching her in anxiety-filled on-the-spot broadcasts, and pushing for opportunities for her.

Justice has a history of seducing and discarding young assistants, so everyone at the station assumes Tally's his next bedwarmer. But not our girl - she's nobody's victim, and she holds out until right before she's definitely going to leave town for a new job. So what's at stake? Not much. That, plus the inevitability of these two gorgeous golden creatures falling for each other, perhaps explains the lack of dramatic tension or chemistry in their erotic coupling. It's a pleasant, dreamy, interlude, and Avnet films it in the kind of dreamy montage usually associated with fragrance commercials.

But that's only the beginning section. As the movie sprawls on, we spend what seems like a very long time watching Tally come a very long way - until finally the lovers conclude they can't live without one another in separate cities. Since Tally's being groomed as a network anchor - the big brass ring - Warren must go begging, hat in hand, for a job in her market. But the medium's changed, and real news guys like him aren't heroes anymore, they're just out of synch. Can career-obsessed media couple Warren and Tally make it in the modern world, or will their ambitions - or fate - tear them apart? Will the ending be sad, and will you have your handkerchief ready? Will you believe it for a minute?

Part of the problem is that the movie presents a heroine primed with empty ambition, but makes no comment on it. Ambition not linked to conviction is just vanity seeking a stage, and who wants to watch that show? Movie audiences today are far too sophisticated for that. We've seen wicked weather girl Nicole Kidman in the black comedy "To Die For." We've seen William Hurt, the blond devil incarnate, in "Broadcast News." We want our bimbo media stars to have something to say, even if it's about us.

Nor does Avnet find a coherent tone for the piece. At the outset, the actors seem very much at odds with each other - Pfeiffer's doing ditsy screwball comedy, while Redford's doing straight-ahead naturalism as an above-it-all veteran newsman. Magic doesn't happen.

The credits list the movie as "inspired by the book 'Golden Girl' by Alanna Nash," about the life of newswoman Jessica Savitch. The studio, which once purchased the rights to that book, is downplaying the similarities. Indeed, this story has very different circumstances and a very different ending than Savitch's story - which did already inspire a television movie, the Lifetime Channel's "Almost Golden," starring Sela Ward.

THE FACTS

The film: "Up Close and Personal" (PG-13; sex).

The stars: Robert Redford, Michelle Pfeiffer, Stockard Channing, Joe Mantegna, Kate Nelligan, Glenn Plummer.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Jon Avnet. Written by Joan Didion and John Gregory Dunne. Produced by Jon Avnet, David Nicksay and Jordan Kerner. Released by Touchstone Pictures/Buena Vista.

Running time: Two hours, four minutes.

Playing: Citywide.

Our rating: Two Stars.