Movie trailers often offer the best scenes from a film, thus disappointing moviegoers when they go to the theater and feel they’ve seen the movie already. Such is mostly the case with Rumor Has It. The story concerns a rumor passed down from one generation to another. It's about a man and woman who ran off together -- but the woman’s mother had supposedly seduced her daughter’s suitor. This scandal fueled wagging tongues in Pasadena and soon turned into the plot of a popular movie titled The Graduate.

These are the facts that Sarah Huttinger (Jennifer Aniston) discovers on the day she attends her sister’s (Mena Suvari) wedding. Sarah is already thinking twice about saying yes to her fiancé Jeff (Mark Ruffalo). In fact, aboard the plane on the way to the wedding he notices her ring has been tucked away in her purse and questions Sarah about it. Her excuse? Not wanting to upstage her sister’s day.  

Things don’t get better at the wedding where Sarah becomes even more distressed by a constant feeling that she doesn’t belong with the family. Her mother has passed away; Sarah’s sister and father (Richard Jenkins) have highbrow attitudes and expectations that Sarah doesn’t share; and she never seems to fit into the conversation or get excited about the same things as her stuck-in-a-rut dad or her “bouncing” sister.

Sarah confesses to her grandmother Katherine (Shirley MacLaine) an anxiety about marriage and her frustration with a dead-end career writing obits for a newspaper. Katherine tells Sarah she’s not the first in the family to question the trip down the aisle. She also lets slip that Sarah’s own mother ran off -- only days before her wedding to Sarah’s father -- to spend time with another man in Mexico.

Putting two and two together and counting the days from the time her parents were married until she was born, Sarah questions if her dad is really her biological father. After she discovers her mother’s secret lover was Beau Burroughs (Kevin Costner), Sarah sends Jeff home alone while she goes to San Francisco to confront Beau.

This is where the movie takes a nosedive. Sarah finds Beau and lets him know exactly who she is and why she’s there. He admits he not only slept with her mother, but her grandmother as well. Worried when Sarah doesn’t call or show up, Jeff travels to San Francisco and learns Beau is at a big event. He goes there and finds Sarah in Beau’s arms, kissing him passionately.

After Jeff tells Sarah what he thinks of her, he leaves brokenhearted. That night Sarah sleeps with Beau, even while thinking she could be sleeping with her dad. Unless we believe Sarah is an irresponsible and uncaring dimwit, the fact that she got drunk and didn’t realize what she was doing, doesn’t wash. This deed lowered my regard for her character, and after that I didn’t care what happened to Sarah.

Jeff should not have been surprised by Sarah’s actions. The moment she hid that ring in her purse, she made a decision. Yet Jeff is the kind of guy who really loves Sarah and turns the other cheek. He’s well portrayed by Mark Ruffalo, who has drawn praise for his performances in You Can Count on Me and Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind.

“Mark is one of the great American actors we have today,” said director Rob Reiner. “His is a difficult role because he is in this role reversal,” said director Rob Reiner. “He’s playing the female part in a traditional romantic comedy, yet he has to show real masculine strength.”

It doesn’t help that Sarah is a brooding, sour-faced woman throughout the entire movie. One close up after another of Sarah’s frowning face isn’t what I call great entertainment. Juxtaposed to that character, however, is the giggly sister, Annie, and Suvari portrays her with a playful and hopeful attitude that ought to become infectious to her sister.

Shirley MacLaine also adds enjoyment to the film. A star that seems never to dull, MacLaine can certainly hold her own with the young actors. She did the same with Cameron Diaz and Toni Collette earlier this year in the delightful In Her Shoes.

Costner slides into his role with ease. Beau’s convinced he’s a Pied Piper, and it’s the women who chase after him. He’s so convincing, we almost believe him. But it’s Sarah who must ultimately decide which lifestyle she’ll choose and if she’ll end her family’s generational sleepover with Beau.

Rumor Has It evokes some laughs, but if you watched the trailer, you’ve seen most of the movie’s humorous scenes.

(Released by Warner Bros. and rated “PG-13” for mature thematic material, sexual content, crude humor and a drug reference.)

Read Diana Saenger’s reviews of classic films at http://classicfilm.about.com .