The confused script trades in such heavy topics as alcoholism and child sexual abuse, but every dramatic scene plays like one of those schmaltzy Happy Days moments that inevitably drew a big 'Awwwwww!' from the studio audience.

Time for a new book by Jane Fonda, and this time I expect a full chapter on how she got snookered into doing Georgia Rule.

Director Garry Marshall has too much confidence that he can match the weighty issues here with the light comedy. He can't. Or at least he can't with this cast.

Georgia Rule reminds as to why Lohan, unlike some of Hollywood's other troublemakers of the late noughties, has been missed.