What was Angelina Jolie thinking? Allowing herself to appear as a blonde in Life or Something Like It ruined practically everything about this movie for me. Worse than a big smudge on her nose, that new hair color distracted me throughout the entire movie. Naturally, I admit being ashamed of my reaction, mostly because it’s too superficial for a film dealing with how to spend the last week of your life.

Still, is there any reason Jolie’s character, a glamorous television reporter, needs to be blonde? Maybe most women in that profession are blondes, but there must be some brunettes choosing this career out there in the real world. What about Barbara Walters in her early years? And . . . well . . . okay, that’s all I can think of. Perhaps being a glamorous blonde is a requirement for the job. If so, get someone else for the part – like Meg Ryan, Heather Graham, Britney Spears (just kidding on that one). Please leave Jolie’s dark, mysterious beauty alone.

Although it feels good to get that off my chest, I faced even more problems while watching Life or Something Like It. Very little about the misdirected plot, from a screenplay by John Scott Shepherd (Joe Somebody) and Dana Stevens (City of Angels), worked for me. Ambitious Laine Kerrigan (Jolie) thinks she has the perfect life. A wonderful job at a Seattle television station. A plush apartment. A fiancé who’s also batting champion for the Seattle Mariners. A chance to break into national television. But Laine’s "cloud nine" existence begins to unravel when she meets Prophet Jack (Tony Shalhoub), a homeless savant, who predicts she will not get her coveted new job. And, worse, he tells her she will die within a few days. Using this situation as the jumping off place for Life or Something Like It, director Stephen Herek (Rock Star) can’t make up his mind whether he’s helming a comedy or a drama.

One of the best examples of Herek’s ambivalence comes in a scene between Laine and a television news icon (played vigorously by Stockard Channing of t.v.’s West Wing). It’s supposed to be a satire of all those teary Barbara Walters interviews, but I didn’t know whether to laugh or cry.

"Laine is very ambitious and takes herself very seriously, but because she’s so serious about perfection, she’s slightly funny," Jolie says. The key word here is "slightly." Oscar-winner Jolie (for Girl, Interrupted) tries hard to capitalize on a few humorous situations. She succeeds only once – in a scene showing Laine empathizing with transit strikers while leading them in a group-sing of "I Can’t Get No Satisfaction." The film offered Jolie her first opportunity to star in a comedic role, and it proves she should stick to drama – a form in which she almost always excels. (The exception? Tomb Raider, of course.)

In contrast, Shalhoub, an expert at comedy, finds himself misused in a one-note dramatic role here. Nothing is required of him except raising his arms toward the heavens and proclaiming such nonsense as "An angel will fall from the sky!" Granted, the Wings veteran says these lines with conviction and certainly looks the part in his tattered wardrobe and unkempt beard.

Shalhoub fares better than Edward Burns, who portrays a cameraman in love with Laine. Despite his fast-talking sarcasm while urging her to shed that "Miss Perfect" lifestyle, Burns gives a rather blah performance – certainly not one to match his splendid work in The Brothers McMullen, a film he also wrote and directed.

Because Life or Something Like It focuses on such noble themes as redemption, reflecting on what’s important in life, and finding inner peace, I’m disappointed the movie let me down. Still, it never hurts to be reminded of the old saying, "Live each day as if it were your last. One day, it will be."

(Released by 20^th Century Fox and rated "PG-13" for sexual content, brief violence, and language.)