PARK CITY -- The sheer novelty of seeing a contemporary British film at a festival that is neither mired in the East End nor gummed together around a bunch of skinheads, dopers, wankers and bruisers is such a treat that it's tempting to overlook the general formulaic inadequacies of this romantic comedy. "Jump Tomorrow" is a cozy, if not particularly frothy, road comedy about a befuddled modern male who heads haphazardly toward his date at the altar. In this dark age of romantic comedy, this IFC Films acquisition will likely amuse select-site contemporary audiences, particularly casual cinemagoers who are unlikely to know this type of screwball romantic road comedy was much better made, egad, 65 years ago. It also might benefit IFC to change the title to something intelligible to U.S. audiences, for instance.

Particularly refreshing in this comedic Brit skit is the fact that the lead character, George (Tunde Adebimpe), a Nigerian immigrant in dreary old England, is a relentlessly middle-class chap with white shirt, horn rims and straight laces; again, a welcome departure from the stereotypical cinematic character, namely the alienated melting-pot outsider one is constantly introduced and reintroduced to here at Sundance. In this good-natured romp, lead character George is a bit of a stiff: Shy, literal-minded and straightforward, he is engaged to a woman back in Nigeria he knew briefly as a child. Being the dutiful son, George acquiesces to an arranged marriage. But once the big date approaches, with his bride en route, he gets cold feet.

Unfortunately, filmmaker Joel Hopkins has taken this ripe character and loaded situation and strung it around the most formulaic sitcom generics. In these plodding plottings, George shows up at the airport to meet his betrothed on the wrong day. While standing around looking befuddled, a nitwit Frenchman named Gerard (Hippolyte Girardot) insinuates himself on hapless George. Gerard has similar romantic woes; he has been turned down in his airport-staged marriage proposal (replete with goofy brass band) to a woman he barely knew. Well, before George boy can straighten his tie, Gerard has crammed them into a rental car and decided to accompany George to his matrimonial date. Another willy-nilly airport happenstance has a jabber-mouthed Latin woman, Alicia (Natalia Verbeke), also headed lickety-split to the same marriage-factory burg. She and George have not so cutely connected, we're led to assume. Most disappointingly, neither of these supporting characters is either comic or particularly sympathetic.

Unfortunately, in this "Mad Mad Mad Mad World"-style vehicle, the comedy appears in all the obvious spots as "Jump Tomorrow" careens and sputters along a romantic minefield. It's not a particularly mirthful trek because screenwriter-director Joel Hopkins' crudely contrived characters and their clunky interactions are neither endearing nor particularly amusing. Frenchman Gerard perambulates about like a demented, say, Gerard Depardieu, while noisy Alicia is also a pill. Although Alicia is grafted into the story as the prototypical screwball female heroine who is supposed to liberate the stuffed-shirt lead male character from his staid marital fate, she comes across as merely abrasive, rather than as attractively aggressive.

Further indicative of the hammered-out nature of this expedition, once George arrives at the altar, what do we find? Well, his bride-to-be is extremely attractive, sweet and personable. In short, we're not rooting for him at all to be liberated from her; in fact, we think he has stumbled into a very sweet deal and should have the good sense to discard the hyperactive Alicia.

Although filmmaker Hopkins certainly knows his movie-comedy history, loading "Jump Tomorrow" onto a tried-and-true comedic structure, he has little sense of comic touch. Insofar as the personal relations go, there's certainly no Capra touch here, and Hopkins' slapstick stagings are woefully flat and misdirected -- no Preston Sturges comparison, either.

Fortunately, there are fine performances and smart comic flourishes throughout. As the straight and stiff George, Adebimpe is smartly deadpan. He is reminiscent of the repressed chaps that Cary Grant once so nimbly played. Unfortunately, the farcical gantlet that director Hopki ns runs him through never reveals anything but stuffiness under George's starched shirt.

What's most pleasing is the film's droll visual humor, including dead-on comic shots of the plastic road to marriage, as well as some cheeky composition of the mode rn-day countryside. These skewed, screwball slantings are the comedic high points, a credit to Hopkins' eye for everyday absurdity. They are smartly juiced by cinematographer Patrick Cady's wacky compositions. Similarly, production designer John Paino jump-starts "Jump Tomorrow" with his wry and funny furnishings.

JUMP TOMORROW
IFC Films
Film Four presents
a Eureka Pictures/Jorge Productions Inc. production
A Film by Joel Hopkins
Producer: Nicola Usborne
Screenwriter-director: Joel Hopkins
Executive producers: Tim Perrello, Paul Webster
Co-producer: Jake Myers
Associate producers: Howard Gertler, Gill Holland
Director of photography: Patrick Cady
Editor: Susan Littenberg
Production designer: John Paino
Music: John Kimbrough
Costume designer: Sarah J. Hol den
Casting: Ali Farrell
Sound mixer: Judy Karp
Color/stereo
Cast:
George: Tunde Adebimipe
Alicia: Natalia Verbeke
Gerard: Hippolyte Girardot
Nathan: James Wilby
George's Uncle: Isiah Whitlock Jr.
Heather Leather: Kaili Vernoff
Old Man: Gene Ruffini
Patricia: Mauceri Consuelo
Sophie: Abiola Wendy Abrams
Priest: Deen Badarour
Running time -- 97 minutes
No MPAA rating