FRANTIC KEATON DISAPPOINTS ... BECAUSE WE SAID SO.

Byline: Bob Strauss Film Critic

Not a good weekend for Super Bowl widows. The one movie Hollywood's releasing for the gals, ``Because I Said So,'' is a bouncing-off-the-walls mess of irritating characters, annoying performances and emotional inconsistency.

It's not very funny, either. Slight new spins on old, lazy romantic comedy bits (montage of meetings with geeky Mr. Wrongs, old people talking naughty and having sex, etc.) don't mask their tiresomeness.

And while none of the behavior here reaches the despicable depths of your average Matthew McConaughey romcom, pretty much everybody is at best a lying, insensitive manipulator. I'm all for flawed characters, especially in comedies. But people you just can't like is taking the concept too far. Even the requisite cute little kid is obnoxious in this one.

Too much girl talk

We're dealing with the Wilder girls, mom Daphne (Diane Keaton) and daughters Maggie (Lauren Graham), Mae (Piper Perabo) and Milly (Mandy Moore). The two older siblings don't have much to do except yak about their bedroom antics, join a few family girl-

group sing-alongs and hide stuff from their unmarried little sister.

It's Daphne and Milly's show, essentially. Mom worries about her youngest's luckless love life. No, make that obsesses on it, perhaps projecting too much of her own frustration onto Milly. We're repeatedly told how Daphne pretty much had to raise her girls on her own, despite the fact that Graham is (and looks) almost a generation older than Moore, so Mr. Wilder must've been in the picture longer than we're expected to believe.

But logic is not the strong suit of ``Said So's'' script, which was brought to us by a couple of writers of ``Stepmom'' and even lesser works. This one's main gimmick, which isn't exploited comically enough, is that Daphne takes out an Internet ad to find Milly a life partner. Mama comes up with what she considers a perfect choice (Tom Everett Scott's charming, if somewhat pretentious architect Jason) but also inadvertently brings an inappropriate musician, Gabriel Macht's Johnny, into the chase.

Unaware of her mother's scheme, Milly is thrilled to date both desirable guys -- neither of whom tells her everything they know, but that's OK because she doesn't inform one about the other, either.

Like any of these people yet? Didn't think so. However, everybody more or less means well, and director Michael Lehmann (``The Truth About Cats and Dogs'' and, a long time ago, ``Heathers'') insists on keeping matters so light and fluffy, little about the characters' self-defeating selfishness is examined -- nor properly made fun of.

Ditto the smothering/enabling relationship between Milly and Daphne, which careens from understandable filial rage to intimate warmth without notice. Even if you accept that mothers and daughters can hate and love each other five times over again in a given day, the extremes of resentment and rapproachment here needed more steps in between to convincingly register.

Conflicting styles

Moore and Keaton's acting styles don't match very well, either. Bland but clearly intelligent, Moore actually seems comfortable in the role of a romantically confused (but too young to really worry about it) kid. Keaton, however, is just too frantic as the overinvolved mother, visibly trying too hard to be funny and overdoing the waterworks, too. Guess you've got to try something when the material isn't on the page, but it's still no fun to watch one of our best veteran film actresses flailing so much.

Bob Strauss, [phone]

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BECAUSE I SAID SO - Two stars

(PG-13: sex, language)

Starring: Diane Keaton, Mandy Moore, Gabriel Macht, Tom Everett Scott, Lauren Graham, Piper Perabo, Stephen Collins.

Director: Michael Lehmann.

Running time: 1 hr. 42 min.

Playing: In wide release.

In a nutshell: Meddling mom hooks daughter up with two desirable guys, complications ensue. Badly written and -- surprisingly, considering the cast -- badly acted.