MOVIE REVIEW : ‘Butcher’s Wife’: No ‘Ghost’ Story

“Ghost” made Demi Moore a star but that doesn’t necessarily mean that she has the star power to carry a movie. The real star of “Ghost” was the hyperactive kitsch of its high concept.

In “The Butcher’s Wife,” (citywide), Moore is once again epoxied inside romantic-mystical goo, but the film lacks the flagrant shamelessness of “Ghost.” She plays Marina, a pixieish North Carolina clairvoyant who meets Leo Lemke (George Dzundza), a Greenwich Village butcher, on his fishing trip, and ends up his bride.

Marina believes she is fated to marry Leo; for his part, Leo is flabbergasted at his “catch.” Working in his Village butcher shop, she dispenses unsolicited psychic advice to her clients, and soon the whole neighborhood is at cross purposes.

Marina has innocently insinuated herself into the romantic and professional lives of at least a half-dozen of the shop’s regulars.

In the process, she recognizes that her fated match with the befuddled, roly-poly Leo may be a mismatch after all. Her real soulmate would appear to be her chief adversary: a disbelieving psychiatrist (Jeff Daniels) whose patients keep receiving contrary counseling from Marina.

Barefoot some of the time, and with blond ringlets, Demi Moore looks like a sexy gamin shepherdess. From the waist up, she might be Daryl Hannah’s kid sister from “Splash.”

“The Butcher’s Wife,” (rated PG-13), which was ploddingly directed by Terry Hughes from a plodding script by Ezra Litwak and Marjorie Schwartz, falls flat trying for a “Splash”-like aura of urban fairy-tale romance; it’s too unimaginative to be entertainingly ga-ga and too silly to be satirical.

The notion that Marina wreaks havoc by telling everyone but herself the truth is a funny one, but the comic possibilities aren’t worked out. We appear to be watching the pilot for a sitcom that was never picked up.

The talented cast, which also includes Frances McDormand, Margaret Colin, Max Perlich and Miriam Margoyles, is in many cases encouraged to overact to the point of stupefaction.

Only Mary Steenburgen, playing a shrinking-violet choir teacher and Leo’s secret love, manages a few deft moments. When she walks into a clothing store and, in all seriousness, says, “I’m looking for something dowdy,” you can only wish that the movie had been handed over to her.

‘The Butcher’s Wife’

Demi Moore: Marina

Jeff Daniels: Alex

George Dzundza: Leo

Mary Steenburgen: Stella

A Paramount Pictures presentation of a Nicita/Lloyd production, released by Paramount Pictures. Director Terry Hughes. Producers Wally Nicita and Lauren Lloyd. Executive producer Arne Schmidt. Screenplay by Ezra Litwak and Marjorie Schwartz. Cinematographer Frank Tidy. Editor Donn Cambern. Costumes Theadora Van Runkle. Music Michael Gore. Production design Charles Rosen. Art director Diane Yates. Set decorator Donald J. Remacle. Running time: 1 hour, 42 minutes.

MPAA-rated PG-13.