Jennifer Garner

Jennifer Garner is never a fish out of water

Jennifer Garner never makes it to the altar in her latest movie, "Catch and Release," thanks to the untimely death of her fiance. But Garner can't deny the whims of a woman who just got hitched at the Casa Del Mar hotel in Santa Monica, Calif., where the actress is in the midst of a photo shoot. When a wedding photographer stops Garner to tell her that the bride, also named Jennifer, would love a photo with the actress, she hesitates, then with a sigh gets up from the couch. "Stinking A, it's a bride," she proclaims with a resigned smile. It's that sense of approachability that led director Susannah Grant to cast Garner, 34, in her directorial debut, which opened Friday. Garner's character, Gray Wheeler, is a would-be bride who, to her dismay, discovers her seemingly perfect man's shady past after his death. "I wanted to be able to believe that Gray had not been dealt any of life's blows yet," Grant says. She turns to Garner and smiles at the actress, who's curled up on the couch in Ugg slippers and an oversized Stella McCartney sweater. Grant, 44, tells Garner that "when you cast a role, you can't disregard reputation. You have a disposition about you that's genuinely optimistic, and your wounds aren't all over your face."

Jennifer Garner loses her diamonds

Actress Jennifer Garner lost and found a precious diamond ring given to her by husband Ben Affleck. During an appearance on the American television show Live With Regis and Kelly, Garner explained that the ring was given to her by Ben after she gave birth to their daughter Violet. The Elektra star accidentally dropped it: "It fell into the drain under this ice maker. The plumber had to come and dismantle the thing from under the house and he found it."

Crave catches Jennifer Garner

We have a soft spot for any woman who can kick our ass. Sigourney Weaver, Linda Hamilton, Charlie's Angels, Sarah Michelle Gellar… Jennifer Garner is one of the tops though. On TV's Alias and in movies like Daredevil and Elektra, Garner made male pain look enticing. She's on to some serious acting now, with Catch and Release, a comedy-drama about a woman dealing with the death of her fiancé. It's not a downer though, and neither is spending the morning with such a lovely celebrity.

No need to 'Catch' Jennifer Garner's new film

Writer Susannah Grant, directing for the first time with "Catch and Release," seems to be aiming for the same kind of meaty chick flick she's come up with before in "28 Days," "Erin Brockovich" and "In Her Shoes." But this fish-themed romance flops wildly all over the place -- from heavy poignant moments to slapsticky comedy, with a healthy dose of soapy melodrama in between. What's worse is that her characters sound like people saying things that were written for them, not real people behaving organically, believably. Jennifer Garner stars as Gray, a young woman whose fiance, Grady, dies in a boating accident on the eve of their wedding. The florists and caterers arrive and end up serving a funeral instead; the device puts you on edge from the start. Financial problems force her to move into the cluttered home in laid-back Boulder, Colo., that Grady shared with Dennis (Sam Jaeger), his partner in a fly-fishing business, and Sam (Kevin Smith), the wisecracking pal who likes to regurgitate quotes that appear on his tea company's boxes. But while she's there, and still grieving, Gray learns all kinds of things about the man she loved that she never knew before -- like, that he was secretly wealthy and had about $1 million in his bank account. Oh, and that he cheated on her in Los Angeles and is the father of her young son, to whom he sends $3,000 a month. All of this makes her realize that she never really knew him -- or herself for that matter. Soon the mom, a dippy massage therapist named Maureen (Juliette Lewis) who is the polar opposite of the straight, wholesome Gray, comes teetering into town in her high heels and micro-miniskirt with the destructive little moppet (Joshua Friesen) in tow. All of Grady's inordinately openhearted friends not only let her stay, they also eat the organic dinner she prepares, which provides an opportunity for Gray to loosen up and make some confessions of her own. In the midst of all this there's an out-of-nowhere suicide attempt and a couple of ugly confrontations with Grady's mother (Fiona Shaw), who wants the family's heirloom engagement ring back. There's a lot going on here. It's a long movie, and it's packed. At the same time, Gray falls in love with one of Grady's buddies, a bad-boy TV director named Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), and begins a secret relationship with him. His sly good looks make it easy to accept Olyphant as a scheming womanizer; after similar roles in "Go" and "The Girl Next Door," he's got this routine down by now. But then Fritz turns into a sweetheart, which seems abruptly out of place. Not to mention that it's implausible that she'd fall for this person, out of everyone in the world, this quickly. It seems crass -- and, if you'll pardon the pun, a little fishy.

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