Two and 1/2 stars

At one point in "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," a character laments, "I distracted myself with silly things."

A variation on this comment would serve as an apropos description of the film -- it is a distraction based upon silly things.

Adapted from Winifred Watson's 1938 novel, "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day," the film is set in London when the city and the world were on the brink of war. However, for the common man or woman, such as Guinevere Pettigrew (Frances McDormand), just finding work is of a greater concern.

Because of her rigidity in spirit and plainness in appearance, Miss Pettigrew doesn't have a great deal of success in holding jobs as a governess. Sleeping in train stations and searching for her next meal in soup kitchens, it quickly becomes apparent that Miss Pettigrew desperately needs a job.

Out of such desperation, she steals an interview opportunity with Delysia LaFosse (Amy Adams), an "entertainer" in need of a social secretary. Miss Pettigrew quickly discovers that not only is Delysia something of a ditz, she's really a child pretending to be an adult.

Delysia's personal life is one of keeping a series of plates spinning without falling and crashing into a million pieces.

She has three lovers: Phil (Tom Payne), a boyish producer of plays in London's West End; Nick (Mark Strong), a swarthy nightclub owner and wannabe hood; and Michael (Lee Pace), a piano man who plays in Nick's club.

These men also have a place in the mess that is Delysia's professional life.

Delysia is sleeping with Phil in the hope that he will give her the lead in his new play. Delysia is living in Nick's penthouse because she sings in his club. And Michael is Delysia's musical support.

While it may be obvious which one of these three gentlemen really loves Delysia, she's blithely oblivious because she feels that wealth and position are adequate substitutes for love. That is, until she encounters Miss Pettigrew's pragmatic approach to life.

But even the staid Miss Pettigrew is not without her emotional conundrums, as Delysia brings her newfound friend into the world of movers and shakers. For Miss Pettigrew catches the eye of Joe (Ciaran Hinds), a widower and successful designer of women's lingerie, and Edythe (Shirely Henderson), his younger girlfriend, who knows a threat to her meal ticket when she sees one.

As directed by Bharat Nalluri, this is all really much ado about nothing.

Unfortunately, what should be a romantic farce of screwball proportions is turned into a matter-of-fact fairy tale of romantic whimsy by screenwriters David Magee and Simon Beaufoy.

Stars Adams and Mc-Dormand are given wardrobes to wear rather than characters to play. Indeed, if there are any stars to this film, it wouldn't be the actors, but production designer Sarah Greenwood and costumer Michael O'Connor.

Through their efforts, they create a visual showpiece of glamour and glitz that is more evocative of the musicals of the golden age of MGM than of 1939 London.

Theirs is a sumptuous feast of visual riches that masks the vacuous underpinnings of the film's script.

Someone such as Preston Sturges, who understood the essence of romance and screwball comedy, could have made "Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day" into a fine, bubbly champagne of an entertainment. Instead, audiences will have to settle for a film of sparkling wine ladled only with fizz and froth.