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"Let me ask you: What would be the absolute worst thing that could happen to me right now?"

Win a Date with Tad Hamilton! contains moments that approach romantic comedy greatness, but is constantly yanked back to mediocrity whenever it threatens to take off. The problem, I think, is that screenwriter Victor Levin is hellbent on crafting a modern David & Goliath fairy tale despite the film's entreaties to remain an elegant sort of double fish-out-of-water story. In his desperation to follow the conventions of his chosen sub-genre, Levin drags his script in all the wrong directions and ditches a spectacular bittersweet ending in favor of something much more cloying and obvious.

But yes, there are times when the movie works beautifully, capitalizing on its high concept in unexpected ways, taking brilliant advantage of its talented cast, throwing neat, if none-too-subtle potshots at its own industry. The appeal, at least for me, lies not in its title character (newcomer Josh Duhamel) -- the hunky star of many a Hollywood crowdpleaser including, in a hysterical blink-and-you'll-miss-it gag, "Acey Deucey" -- but in the "backwoods" West Virginians he meets as a result of the contest his agent (Nathan Lane) dreams up to restore his image: the shy, fawning Rosalie Futch (Kate Bosworth), her longtime friends Pete (Topher Grace) and Cathy (Ginnifer Goodwyn), as well as her father (Gary Cole), who decides to read up on Variety before first meeting Mr. Hamilton.

Gary Cole aside (I've known that he was a genius since the frickin' Brady Bunch Movie), Win a Date with a Tad Hamilton! signals the arrival of three next-gen comedians. The jury is still out on Josh Duhamel -- he doesn't have to do much here aside from looking the part -- but the rest of them are stuffed with promise. The first to draw my eye was Ginnifer Goodwyn, who got some nice notices for her work in the otherwise execrable Mona Lisa Smile late last year; unconventionally beautiful and expressive, the actress imbues her occasionally lame jokes with an irresistible personality, making screamingly inappropriate dialogue about Tad Hamilton's various body parts sound amusing and even sweet. Can't speak of her potential as a leading lady, but her career as a supporting player should be sealed; the actress she reminds me of most is my beloved Bonnie Hunt.

Kate Bosworth, who looks nothing like she did in Blue Crush is certainly easy on the eyes as well, but it is her charm, not her looks, that serve her best here. The script leans too heavily on her character's gee-whiz West Virginia naïvete (though even that sometimes leads to moments of surprising cleverness: "Bon Appetit!" says Tad Hamilton, raising his glass; "Mmm-hmm!" replies Rosalie, digging into her dinner), but Bosworth gets us through it, eminently lovable even when she is doing little aside from beaming at the camera.

Topher Grace's Pete has been secretly in love with Rosalie his entire life, and Grace effectively portrays melancholy and longing under a bitterly sarcastic exterior. Managing to look diminutive despite apparently being 5'11", he doesn't beg for your affection like some actors undoubtedly would in this role, sometimes even daring not to be likable. His character isn't given the closure he deserves, but Topher Grace is a funny guy.

Director Robert Luketic (Legally Blonde) sets a breakneck pace, often skipping the formalities of story transition, and this is both a blessing and a curse. He spares us the clunky and sappy plot machinations that these movies are often saddled with, but this later comes back to haunt him as the film lacks the emotional heft to make the heavy-handed final scenes work in its favor. It would have been foolish of me to expect a film like this to make any sort of statement with its conclusion, but Luketic teases us with it for a while, and the ultimate suspense isn't over who claims Rosalie as his own but whether the movie will punk out on us. There are several lengthy speeches that unexpectedly make Tad himself a secondary character, and his redemption is underplayed in favor of a typical romantic comedy scenario.

So Win a Date With Tad Hamilton! is a failure, but it's an interesting failure, blessed with several delightful flourishes and a cast filled not with name-brand behemoths but with prodigiously talented, engaging semi-newcomers. I'm not happy with it, but it's an easy sit.