It is a simple, kindly film, which manages to combine robust and sexy comedy with a generous and intelligent approach to the basic human problems it assaults.

There is the faint rustling of comic potential in this situation. But it is firmly sat on in the early middle stages by Canadian director Claude Jutra, who directs with strange timing and awkward pauses.

[An] occasionally amusing but clumsy farrago. Jutra seldom gets the tone right at all.

By Design is at its best as a screwball comedy with a twist.