Director Michael Lehmann’s Because I Said So is the story of a single mother, Daphne (Diane Keaton), and her relationships with her daughters, in particular her youngest, Milly (Mandy Moore), a caterer. Daphne’s older daughters, Maggie (Lauren Graham) and Mae (Piper Perabo), are happily married, while Milly is still single in her mid- to late 20s. Afraid that Milly will end up an old maid, Daphne embarks on a mission to find her a life-mate. She places an advertisement via an online dating service, and interviews the respondents at a local bar. After sifting through and rejecting many men, she meets an architect, Jason (Tom Everett Scott), who is nice, charming, and seems perfect. Daphne gives him Milly’s business card so that he can hire her catering firm as a pretext for meeting her, and then ask her out.

But sometime during Daphne’s series of interviews, Johnny (Gabriel Macht), the guitarist in the bar’s house band, introduces himself and suggests that maybe he is the right guy for her daughter. Daphne discourages him -- she likes Johnny, but doesn’t want her daughter to hook up with a musician. Johnny secretly swipes one of Milly’s business cards, arranges to bump into her, and Milly meets him at just about the time she begins dating Jason. Soon, she finds herself falling for both men.

The four women in Because I Said So have the kind of relationship among themselves that seems to exist only in Hollywood movies. Daphne’s daughters share much of their sexual lives with their mother. In fact, one of the girls has conference-calling on her cell phone so that, when Milly is about to sleep with a guy, she can tell them all just moments before. But Daphne, however well-meaning, is so overbearing that I found it hard to believe her daughters would maintain such close relationships with her.

Because I Said So is light, amusing, absent of any meanness of spirit, and has some enjoyable moments. The actresses playing the three daughters are fun, likable, and well cast. In fact, Mandy Moore is so charming that we easily forgive Milly for conducting simultaneous affairs with Jason and Johnny, sleeping with both and leading them on.

Though we know that, in a romantic comedy such as this, Milly must choose one of the men, screenwriters Karen Leigh Hopkins and Jessie Nelson are to be commended for making both of them decent guys -- it’s not entirely obvious which one Milly should marry. However, the writers do resort to several clichés. One of the men is a single parent, to suggest that he has qualities the other lacks, and evidently we’re supposed to find his hyperactive son (Ty Panitz) cute and endearing. I did not.

The winning suitor must also publicly pronounce his love for Milly. Why, in so many current films, are men allowed so little dignity when they are in love with a woman? Why must they scream their undying devotion from a street corner or in a crowded room, with dozens of people watching? Rarely is the man allowed to quietly and privately profess his love and win the girl. Most modern love stories seem to end with some poor guy making an ass of himself in public -- only then is he deemed worthy of the woman. Because I Said So continues this tradition of publicly humiliating the love-smitten man. The onscreen audience to this display was moved. I groaned, covered my eyes, and squirmed.

Because I Said So is nice, generally inoffensive, and neither particularly original nor memorable. Save your money and rent it on DVD.

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