As I sat watching the opening scenes of Susannah Grant’s “Catch and Release,” I flashed back to a personal experience from several years ago.  Like the characters portrayed in this film, I, too, had been friends with a dynamic young man who was tragically killed shortly before his wedding.  His funeral replaced what should have been the happiest day of his life — and that of his beautiful and bright fiancée.  While the premature death of anyone is horrible, combining that agony with the pain being thrust upon a bride-to-be is something I hope I never witness again. 

As she plays Gray, the “widowed” fiancée in “Catch and Release,” Jennifer Garner conveys a realistic response to the awful, abrupt — and very permanent — absence of the love of her life.  Gray’s reaction is one of pure numbness, coupled with the understandable desire to not be anywhere near her dead fiancé Grady’s family or friends.  It’s at times like this that we want to be alone with our grief and our thoughts, but society’s conventions often force us to go through the excruciating experience of attending the funeral and, perhaps even worse, facing all those people at the post-funeral reception where the dining room table is piled high with food no one wants to eat. 

As she flees to an upstairs bedroom and cocoons herself behind the shower curtain in the adjacent bathroom, Gray’s attempt at finding isolation is abruptly shattered.  Fritz (Timothy Olyphant), one of her fiancé’s best friends from out of town, slips into the bedroom to handle his feelings of grief by having a “quickie” with the caterer. 

Shocking, but also very funny, that little tasteless twist signals that “Catch and Release” is going to take us on a slightly different path than the usual one we see in this kind of romantic “dramedy.”  No question about it, a lot of “Catch and Release” is fairly predictable.  For example, we are not surprised when Gray and Fritz hook up after the usual testy mating dance.  There also are Grady’s loyal friends, roommates and business partners in his fly-fishing business, Sam and Dennis, played by Kevin Smith and Sam Jaeger. 

It is Smith’s presence in this film that boosts the rating from two and a half to three stars.  The director of such indie classics as “Chasing Amy,” “Clerks” and “Mallrats” delivers a spot-on performance that in itself is reason enough to go see “Catch and Release.”  He is totally hilarious playing the “fat guy” buddy — a role that so easily could have slipped into repetitive mediocrity in the hands of a lesser talent. 

Garner, too, carves out a nice niche here, making Gray believable — especially as she struggles to confront a number of her late fiancé’s troubling secrets.  Along those lines, I won’t expose the key secret here.  That would be unfair, revealing too much of the storyline and robbing you of the fun of discovering it for yourself.  Suffice it to say, Grady was not everything Gray, his mother and even some close friends thought he was. 

As the male romantic lead, Olyphant touches all of the right grace notes, again adding some intriguing depth to the kind of role we’ve seen frequently in similar films.  He’s a leading man, but with a level of sensitivity that he’s stamped as his own. 

Juliette Lewis, like Smith, is another excellent reason to see this film.  Her quirkiness and offbeat charm as a New Age-obsessed, vegetarian massage therapist is just fun to watch. 

While writer/director Grant does not break a lot of new ground with this film, it leaves us with a nice feeling at the end.  We’re taken on a satisfying journey that likely will make us turn to whoever we’re with at the movie and wonder, “Do I know everything I think I know about him or her?” 

Catch and Release

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Starring: Jennifer Garner, Timothy Olyphant and Kevin Smith

Director: Susannah Grant

Rated: PG-13 for sexual content, language and some drug use