A rabbi, a priest and a beautiful woman walk into this bar in Manhattan and …Heard this one before? If you haven't, you've witnessed variations and already seen several of the comedic situations in Keeping the Faith. Fortunately, in this case, familiarity breeds content, and it's easy to be converted by the film's easy, gracious comedy and good-spirited hijinks.

Starring Ben Stiller as Rabbi Jacob Schram, Edward Norton as Father Brian Finn, and Jenna Elfman as corporate exec Anna Reilly, Keeping the Faith is a sweet-edged friendship/love triangle about the three modern Rs - romance, religion, and relationships. Friends in grade school, the three come around again in their friendship as young adults, when Anna returns to New York after moving to California as a child and looks up the two "boys."

In tone and theme, you could call Keeping the Faith neo-Garry Marshall for it's a mix of sophistry and suds. It's sometimes thick shtick: Latter-day David Steinberg-ish jokes and Woody Allen-like snippets enliven the big life questions. Since it does not smear middle-class institutions or denigrate organized religion, it's not likely to ever come up for Academy Award consideration. In religious and stylistic terms, think of it as a film that Miramax would never make. Faith is light and cozy, leavening its more weighty content with lightweight farce. Even its satire is affirming rather than castigating.

Like Butch and Sundance, the Rabbi and the Priest find that with Anna's arrival there is now a ripple in their friendship - both have eyes for her. Beginning as a casual buddy film, the story soon escalates into a good-natured yarn of romance and rivalry with a religious backdrop. Admittedly, it's likely to play best in regions where people have, at least, somewhat of a knowledge and understanding of the Jewish faith. Although it's narratively a threesome, Rabbi Jacob (Stiller) is the main man, and it's his trials and tribulations with his synagogue and love life that are the core of this cinematic service.

In Faith, lifelong friends Rabbi Jacob and Father Brian are in essentially the same positions in their respective religions: Jacob is on the verge of becoming a full rabbi, while Brian is a priest on the rise. They're bright and funny, and they pack them in at the worship services. And, they're both single - Brian because he is a priest and has embraced celibacy, and Jacob because he can't find the right girl although all the mothers in the synagogue continuously foist their daughters upon him.

Not surprisingly, the comedy focuses on Jacob's romances, and they are sitcom funny, or in this age of such hideous relationship close-ups as TV's Blind Date, smartly old-fashioned. The romantic comedy is more reminiscent of the romantic foibles of an early Woody Allen, and the addled confusions of a bushy-haired Albert Brooks. Admittedly, it's all a bit larkish and sitcom, with morsels of sermonizing thrown in between the patter and chatter.

Episodic in content and form, Keeping the Faithslides around a number of concerns, and plotlines, all affecting the lives of young professionals. It's good-humored in its pokes at the institutionalized stiffness of organized religion, while at the same time re-affirming the powers of tradition. Credit screenwriter Stuart Blumberg with some decidedly nimble writing, interweaving serious themes within an amiable comedy. It's also warmly directed by Edward Norton, which smoothes over some of the herky-jerky plotting.

Yet, what makes it so likeable is in large part due to Stiller and Norton's engagingly comic performances. Stiller is particularly amusing as the romantically vexed Rabbi. With his somewhat stumpy demeanor and persnickety countenance, Stiller is endearing and funny and, quite naturally, his serioso visage makes him a marvelous straight man for slapstick. He has brought his frazzled There's Something About Mary disposition to great comic effect here. Whether beleaguered by modern dating or befuddled by the elders of his synagogue, he's hilarious.

With a mischievous twinkle in his eye, Norton is a winningly sympathetic priest and his cherubic countenance is particularly well suited to his character's personality. In fact, he looks so beguilingly innocent, he seems more like an altar boy, and in this affectionate, old-fashioned film, one starts to look around for Spencer Tracey to walk in as the real priest. Certainly, Norton's role and performance is a far cry from his previous sociopath roles, and shows what a fine and supple character actor he is.

As dealmaker and heartbreaker Anna, Jenna Elfman has the film's most difficult acting challenge. Since she's clearly the third wheel, or plot catalyst, her character is pretty much a stick figure. Other than her beauty and workaholic drive there's not much to define her. As a sympathetic character, she's also handicapped: Unlike the "boys," she is not leading a life of self-sacrifice and comes across as being, well, obnoxious. Barking hostile-takeover orders into her cell phone, she's almost as annoying as the pesky Paul Reiser in those odious AT&T commercials. After a while, one wonders why these two kindly men are dueling over her anyway. Verily, you'd also need a real leap of faith to believe her character as the type who would prefer men of the cloth to men of the platinum cards.

In a supporting role as Rabbi Jacob's devoted mother, Anne Bancroft is alternately domineering and loving, with just the perfect mix of respect and chagrin at her little boy who now happens to be a rabbi. Her character's well-meaning but intrusive bent reminds one that no matter what rank or distinction people rise to, they're always children in the eyes of their mother.

Give director Edward Norton the Woody Allen Award for making New York look romantically scrumptious. The delis and delirium of the Upper West Side are affectionately conveyed. All the city's abrasions are luminously scraped off under Norton's beneficent hand. In addition, the film bounces along with a perky step, mixing slapstick with sophistry in entertaining doses. Norton, one suspects, could deliver a good sermon in real life, enlightening and entertaining but never preachy. That's Keeping the Faith.