Scaled down to the quiet, steady rhythms of its rural Nebraska setting, writer-director Hilary Birmingham's Tully seems a little anxious to submit itself as a noble alternative to hollow, mega-budgeted studio productions, which are presumably less attuned to the vicissitudes of everyday life. It asks to be admired for its solid work ethic and modest sense of proportion, which never reaches beyond the parameters of a one-stoplight town with a few farms, a mini-mart, a couple of bars, and a swimming hole. In its strongest moments, Tully has the quality of a good short story, in the way it details the underlying affection and resentment that creeps into the lives of its four main characters, played with great sensitivity by a cast of mostly unknowns. But the melodrama that first gently tugs on the story eventually yanks it to the ground, making demands that are as taxing and artificial in their own way as the Hollywood contrivances the film so studiously avoids. Last seen as a patient babysitter to Britney Spears and friends in Crossroads, Anson Mount brings the same broad assurance to the title character, a handsome and easy-going lothario who has his pick of every floozy in town. Initially content with the negligible demands of his stripper girlfriend (Catherine Kellner) and the daily upkeep of father Bob Burrus' farm, Mount faces more serious problems when the bank puts a lien on the property and threatens foreclosure. Though the family tries to resolve the matter quietly, the news opens up a wellspring of secrets that puts a strain on Mount's relationship with his brooding father and his misfit younger brother (Glenn Fitzgerald). Meanwhile, he grows increasingly affectionate toward Fitzgerald's friend Julianne Nicholson, a shy and spindly neighbor whose plain virtues stand in sharp relief to the women Mount usually attracts. Before the screws start to turn, Tully seems remarkably attuned to the warm, inviting routines of pastoral life, with only the faintest tension spoiling the characters' lazy afternoons under the sun. The performances, particularly Nicholson's appealing turn, are pitched at just the right degree of naturalism, with none of the actors caught overreaching for dramatic effect. While conflict is inevitable, the onslaught of shocking revelations steers the film away from the relaxed, go-nowhere earthiness that Birmingham and her cast worked so carefully to establish. Once Tully becomes an unwitting slave to melodrama, the clichés don't subside until the low-key denouement, which is only a weather report away from owing royalties to sex, lies and videotape.