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Verdict: An enjoyable minor ensemble comedy about a therapist and his patients.

Details: Starring Loren Dean, Hope Davis, Jason Lee and Alfre Woodard. Rated R for sex-related images, language and drug content. 1 hour, 51 minutes.

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Review: "Mumford" is the name of one of those sleepy American towns where blooming vines twine around porch railings and folks say hi to strangers. It's not quite the title setting in "Pleasantville," but like the sparkling burg in "Runaway Bride," it's the kind of town you find only in the movies.

Sometimes that's fine. As a writer or director, Lawrence Kasdan has been responsible for some of the thrills of the first "Star Wars" trilogy, Indiana Jones' first big adventure and cultural touchstones such as "The Big Chill" and "Body Heat." But he also understands that sometimes a gentle, sunny character comedy is a good enough reason to go to the multiplex.

"Mumford" also happens to be the last name of a psychologist (the engaging, boyish Loren Dean) whose mixture of empathy and cut-to-the-chase directness have won him the town's largest client list in the four months since he arrived. His habit of talking publicly about his clients' kinks is both appealing and appalling to the townsfolk.

"What's your secret?" asks his landlady, Lily (Alfre Woodard), one of the few locals who isn't a client.

His secret, when it's revealed, isn't such a big surprise. It's not the point of the movie, either. Kasdan's slight comedy rests on the shoulders of his superb character actors, each of whom has just enough screen time to sketch a distinct impression.

There's Sofie (Hope Davis), the wry divorcee whose official complaint is chronic fatigue syndrome. As Mumford takes her on therapeutic strolls, during which they start to fall in love, he realizes that the real problem is her vicious mother (Dana Ivey).

Then there's shopaholic Althea (Mary McDonnell), whose children have insisted she seek therapy, and whose husband (Ted Danson, in a priceless, snide cameo) is an investment banker who measures life in brandy snifters and Cuban cigars.

Pruitt Taylor Vince is a portly pharmacist whose fantasy life is a jumble of film-noir sex stories — like the ones Kasdan himself drew on for "Body Heat" — and Jason Lee plays a skateboarding genius whose line of modems has made him a billionaire but left him lonely. His secret project: to build the perfect, computer-generated sexual companion.

Kasdan lets Mumford sort through its problems, finding ways to pair people off in reliable romantic-comedy fashion. He throws in complications, via an irate lawyer (Martin Short) and rival therapists (David Paymer and Jane Adams). But there's never any doubt that all will end happily in a script that's held together by Kasdan's smart but forgiving observations about human foibles.

Don't confuse "Mumford" with "American Beauty," which also opens today. Both toy with the secrets brewing beneath sunny suburban surfaces. But "Mumford" is much lighter, and much more disposable. It reassures audiences with the gentle illusion that all we need to do is talk our problems through, that everything can be worked out and made right. It's a gentle vacation from the high-concept bangs and lowbrow laughs of most of the other movies out there.

— Steve Murray, Cox News Service

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