Straining to meld a love triangle with an astronomy lesson, the rom-com “The Brightest Star” disappears into a black hole of cliché.
Chris Lowell (an isotope of John Krasinski) plays a mild college student who gets sucked into the gravitational pull of the planet-size eyes of a blond cutie (Rose McIver) in astronomy class. Altering his career trajectory, he orbits around her while taking a depressing corporate job. But isn’t his true kindred spirit an artsy downtown folk singer (Jessica Szohr) who rejects the 9-to-5 life?
As dull as the situation is, the execution is even duller. Our doe-eyed young man receives wisdom from an actual astronomer (Allison Janney, the movie’s only saving grace) and learns that “sometimes looking as far away as we can is just a way of ignoring what’s right in front of us.” Still, any scene containing Janney beats the dopey falling-in-love bits that rely on dialogue like, “If we were a color, what color would we be?” I dunno, is “bland” a color?