In a performance that could retroactively cancel out her Academy Award nomination for Leaving Las Vegas, Elisabeth Shue stars in Molly as a young autistic woman who, after the institute she calls home closes, moves in with a brother (Aaron Eckhart) so self-centered he carries around a picture of his boat. Before long, however, Eckhart learns to care for Shue, helping her seek an experimental treatment from pretty neurologist Jillian Hennessy. Shue's unconvincing approximation of autism—which closely resembles the behavior of a sleepy toddler—then morphs into an unconvincing approximation of a woman emerging from an autistic state, a condition Shue simulates as if playing an easily distracted teen. But her happiness, as anyone who's ever read Flowers For Algernon might guess, can't last, even after she finds love with Thomas Jane, a man whose learning disability seems to manifest itself only in his inability to put on his cardigans speedily. Molly barely received theatrical release, and it's easy to see why: Directed like a movie of the week, right down to the pastel dresses, by the usually reliable John Duigan (Sirens, Flirting, Lawn Dogs) and written by Dick Christie (best known as the dad on the unkillable sitcom Small Wonder), Molly clearly means well. But there's hardly a moment in which it works, in large part because the talented Shue never gets a handle on the character. Even if she could, though, it would only make an overly familiar, barely watchable film an overly familiar, mediocre one.