When movie characters fall in love, it can be as grand as a song-and-dance number or as simple as a passing glance to make the two people involved realize it. For the leads in the romantic dramedy Imagine Me & You, it's the latter case that applies to their situation -- although the people in love might be a surprise.

Young, British, and beautiful Rachel (Piper Perabo) is all ready and excited to marry her dashing fiance Heck (Matthew Goode, recently seen in Match Point). But as she's walking down the aisle, she catches the eye of someone in the pews and becomes immediately infatuated with that person, who just happens to be Luce (Lena Headey), a feisty and fiercely independent florist. 

Not wanting to crush Heck's feelings so quickly or give up on their relationship so soon after getting married, Rachel pushes onward and tries to lead a "normal" life. But she can't seem to get Luce out of her head, and the fact that she always seems to be running into Luce lately isn't helping matters. In the end, though, Rachel realizes she can't keep her growing love for Luce under wraps any longer. She must figure out how to express her feelings without hurting the ones she loves.

A big hubub was made over Ang Lee's Brokeback Mountain and how frank it was in its portrayal of two men sharing a physical and emotional attraction to one another. But whereas that film leaned more to the serious side, Imagine Me & You plays out like an accessible Hollywood romcom, mainstream enough not to alienate potential viewers but still unique enough to intrigue and entertain. The fact that it's two women who are at the center of the film's romantic conflict is almost arbitrary, because on its own, Imagine Me & You is a tender, warm, and funny film about two people who are most definitely in love but can't quite find a way to say it. 

Despite the lesbian aspect of the plot, Imagine Me & You  doesn't have the freshest of plots, so the movie suffers from being a bit predictable. Still, although you have a good handle on the story and an idea where the turns are going to take you, writer/director Ol Parker makes watching the film worth your time by building up a convincing atmosphere surrounding the characters. He also inspires performances that hit the right notes. Imagine Me & You is serious without being stone-faced and funny without being too over-the-top, finding a good balance of humor and drama in the complications that arise when Rachel realizes she's in love with a woman (her efforts in trying to rent an adult video provides one of the film's most amusing scenes). Parker has a keen eye for storytelling and covers his bases well. 

Perabo and Headey (who also, weirdly enough, shared the screen in last year's creature feature The Cave) display good chemistry together, although the fact that American actress Perabo is playing a British character made me wonder if there were no British actresses equally qualified for the part -- though I suspect her casting was to give stateside audiences a name to recognize and be interested in. Goode turns in a solid supporting performance, playing a decent, sympathetic guy, which paves the way for some actual suspense when it comes down to Rachel having to make the Big Choice. I also liked Celia Imrie and Anthony Head as Rachel's parents, but I can't say the same for Boo Jackson as Rachel's younger sister, yet another one of these children in movies who serve up advice beyond their age of comprehension and still manage to look cute. In all fairness, I think it's more the character than the actress that I dislike. 

Imagine Me & You isn't out to make a huge statement or cause heads to turn with its lesbian content. It's a good, modest little movie with the same goal as any romantic film, to tell a sweet story of blossoming love. And, in some ways, this movie is better than many heterosexual love stories I've seen lately.

MY RATING: *** (out of ****)

(Released by 20th Century Fox and rated "R" for some language and sexual material.)