As Eve, Meg Ryan is in typical perky panic mode. What's got her whipped into a tizzy? Well, a Nixon exhibit she, a party planner, is hosting (a nod to co-author Nora Ephron's first husband, Watergate whistle-blower Carl Bernstein?), the mortality of her father (Walter Matthau, the opposite of Dick Clark in that he has always looked eighty years old), the fallout from a car accident, and the realization that her sisters (Diane Keaton and Lisa Kudrow) are complete and utter parasites are all converging at once. Throughout act one, Eve juggles her responsibilities over the telephone, through complex multi-line conversations that try her patience but ours even more so.

Eve is married to an incredibly boring potato portrayed by Adam Arkin, and I envision a better sequel in which she drops him like a hot schlub for Indian doctor Omar Kunundar (Duke Moosekian), who cut her some slack after she rear-ended his vehicle. Moosekian is by far the most captivating person in Hanging Up, but he's ultimately too foreign for the blonde world of unadventurous screenwriting sisters Nora and Delia Ephron (Sleepless in Seattle).

Despite the familiarity of all the remaining elements, especially Ephron crutch Ryan, Hanging Up doesn't function as reliably as an assembly line product should. The film is alternately bracing and plodding; director Keaton mistakes frenzy for funny (she has frequently done this as a performer, too), and the drama gets doughy, relying too heavily on redundant flashbacks and bedside blather. (Ah, phone calls and hospital rooms, the stuff of cinema.)

The filmmakers trip and fall over a third act in which Keaton and Kudrow surface to fight, kiss, make-up, and toss flour at Ryan. Because we have only glimpsed Georgia and Maddy, respectively, until such time, the decision to end the movie on a note of ra-ra sisterhood struck me as brash: even though the two supporting actresses are decidedly typecast, that does not automatically legitimize their characters, nor does it justify a sudden shift in the story's focus.

Hanging Up's scatterbrained agenda may be the result of a studio patch job (it tested poorly), and Columbia's DVD release, with its supplemental inclusion of a madcap nine-minute deleted sequence, gives no indication to the contrary. First, the audio/video quality: available in 16x9-enhanced, 1.85:1 widescreen and full frame versions (each offering slightly more information than the other where one would assume) on the same side of an RSDL disc, the image ranges from adequate to excellent, depending on cinematographer Howard Atherton's lighting scheme. Some scenes are awash in hazy, filtered sunlight that mutes the contrast to an eye-straining degree. Compression artifacts in the form of banding are evident during the opening credits.

The 5.1 Dolby Digital mix is predictably dialogue driven, and voices are clear and properly centred. David Hirschfelder's score is spread out nicely across the soundstage. (You can also listen to it without dialogue or sound effects on track three; its cues remain in sync with the on-screen action.) A slightly lower fidelity Dolby Surround mix is the default track. Other bonus material: a five-minute "gag reel" of outtakes, a weightless 12-minute HBO First Look making-of (which features, oddly, the same intro as the gag reel), production notes, and trailers for Sleepless in Seattle (full frame, 2.0) and Hanging Up (1.85:1, 5.1).

Note: Hanging Up is available individually and in a two-pack with Sleepless in Seattle.-Bill Chambers