Walking into a Sandra Bullock rom-com, you know that whatever sugary fluff is served up, Bullock will at least be her usual charming, goofy self. Not so with The Proposal. In a woeful piece of miscasting, Bullock's charisma goes unexploited, and the film never gets into first gear.

Bullock plays Margaret Tate, a ruthless, uptight editor-in-chief at a publishing company in New York. When Margaret's visa is rejected and she faces deportation to Canada, she forces her long-suffering assistant, Andrew Paxton (Ryan Reynolds), to marry her. He accepts on the condition that he gets promoted. With the government investigating, there's a hasty exit to meet Andrew's family and sell them the lie.

The Paxton home is in Sitka, Alaska, a picture-perfect location that seems shrewdly chosen to distract us from the lazy plot. But no amount of snow-capped mountains and rippling lakes can make the romance between Bullock and Reynolds believable, as it grindingly creaks into gear.

As Margaret, Bullock is a caricature of clipped tones and haughty smirks, and when her natural spark finally appears, it's too little, too late. While Reynolds impressed in the recent rom-com Definitely, Maybe, his performance here is consistently lacklustre. A supporting cast of comic talent (Mary Steenburgen, Betty White, Craig T. Nelson) is also wasted, with bland, pre-digested characters: loving mum, kooky grandma, terse father.you get the idea. Director Anne Fletcher (27 Dresses, Step Up) does an adequate job, but seems just as hemmed in by the material as her cast.

The lure of Reynolds' and Bullock's nude scene together is sure to fill cinema seats (and raise a smile), but the other 106 minutes of The Proposal prove utterly forgettable.