All About Steve is a film that hinges on Sandra Bullock's impressive ability to play the goofball.

It's a sort of anti-romance romantic comedy, and though uneven, it's a lot smarter than most films in the genre.

Bullock stars as Mary, a smart, pretty, socially hopeless young woman who creates crossword puzzles.

She's a clever wordsmith, and she's also got mountains of arcane knowledge at her fingertips -- but she lives at home with her parents and behaves like a 12-year-old.

She can't stop spouting esoteric bits of information.

When she doesn't have an audience, she just talks to herself.

(Could this be a comedy about Asperger's? Forget we asked that.)

Mary gets set up on a blind date by her loving parents. She is pleasantly surprised when Steve (Bradley Cooper) turns up, and decides he's her soulmate.

Steve decides Mary is a bit of a nutcase and finds an excuse to leave early.

After their one and only date, Mary begins following Steve around the country.

He works as a news cameraman.

Thomas Haden Church plays his on-air guy, a vain and vapid news reporter, and Ken Jeong is the third guy on the team.

Mary follows Steve and the news team to a tragedy with a three-legged child, to a hurricane in Texas and to a disaster involving children and an abandoned mine.

For the most part it's awkward and funny and punctuated by physical comedy, but outside that main story there are some interesting things going on.

While Steve continues to reject and fear Mary, for example, she easily befriends other people, including a physics nerd who gets all her verbal references and a sweet- natured woman who doesn't really understand much of what Mary says but appreciates her generous spirit.

The movie shows how Mary is sometimes shunned and avoided because she's so smart; in contrast, Thomas Haden Church's TV reporter character is both wildly narcissistic and thicker than two short planks, and people ask for his autograph wherever he goes.

All About Steve is really all about Mary, and the social pressures brought to bear on those who are different from the norm.

Under the laughs are a handful of insights about round pegs and square holes; you laugh with people in this movie, not at them.

Bullock, whose absolutely fearless comic abilities are the real draw here, manages to put across a fairly serious message and get you to laugh while she does so.

(This film is rated PG)

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