A cross between a sitcom and a soap opera, "My First Mister" is an unapologetic tear-jerker about two unlikely souls who form a deep friendship in the days before the man's demise. The film marks the feature-directing debut of acclaimed actress and Oscar-winning short film director Christine Lahti. She relies heavily on her actors, especially leads Leelee Sobieski and Albert Brooks, to give a contrived and formulaic script by Jill Franklyn its comic edge and energy.

There's always an audience for an old-fashioned weepy. So if Paramount Classics lays the marketing groundwork, "Mister" should see decent boxoffice coin. The film will probably play best to older audiences, for despite Sobieski's Goth getup and pierced body, the soundtrack and pat characterizations are lifts from the Doris Day era.

At first glance, 17-year-old Jennifer (Sobieski) and 49-year-old Randall (Brooks) couldn't seem more opposite. But as designed by Franklyn, they are two peas in a pod. Both construct elaborate walls between themselves and the rest of a threatening world.

For Jennifer, she does this with a death obsession, all-black wardrobe, facial jewelry and tattoos. She possesses a vivid imagination and insists on viewing the world through the comforting distortion of binoculars used backward. She detests her divorced parents, an annoyingly chirpy mother (Carol Kane) and superannuated hippie dad (John Goodman).

For his part, Randall dons a highly conservative wardrobe and a gentlemanly exterior. He surrounds himself with middle-class creature comforts ranging from magazine subscriptions to a fussy adoration of all things old, especially his house and music collection.

Randall hires Jennifer to work in the Century City men's clothing store he manages for no rational reason other than there would be no story if he didn't. He does demand that she lose the facial jewelry, but her rebellious attitude remains.

However, Jennifer digs Randall's sense of humor and, enjoying bizarre scenarios, briefly fantasizes Randall as her May-December lover. Developing a backhand crush on her boss, she sets out to penetrate his emotional armor and in so doing reveals a few chinks in her own.

Then, once this friendship is firmly in place, Franklyn throws in the kicker -- Randall is dying. In fact, he has been under the threat of an early death most of his adult life, and it destroyed his only marriage some 19 years before.

The remainder of the film is taken up with Jennifer's search for his lost wife, tearful family reunions all around and life lessons not too far removed from an afternoon TV special.

It is amazing, however, what creative and conscientious actors can do with tired material. Under Lahti's direction, Sobieski and Brooks individualize these people to move each swiftly beyond their wardrobe accessories. Each has an appealing quirkiness, and they share their scenes together with good-natured give and take.

All other roles are too relentlessly shallow and cliched for the performers to deliver much more than amusing caricatures.

Technical credits are solid, with the story's homes, apartments and places of work almost becoming characters themselves in Dan Bishop's production design. Jeffrey Jur's cinematography is resourceful given the limited means the 29-day production had at its disposal.

Christine Lahti's My First Mister is receiving wildly mixed reviews. While the New York Times' Lawrence Van Gelder calls it "sweet, sentimental" and "life-affirming," and Carrie Rickey in the Philadelphia Inquirer describes it as "a human-scale comedy that reaches across generations to tickle, connect and embrace," Liam Lacey in the Toronto Globe and Mail says that "instead of achieving the heartwarming afterglow for which it strives, it leaves more of a prickly itch of discomfort," and Jack Mathews in the New York Daily News grumbles that it "drifts from goofy situation comedy to pop culture parody to a last-act load of sentiment that would sink a trash barge." Kevin Thomas in the Los Angeles Times takes a middle view. "In its first two-thirds," he writes, the movie "looks to be a winner. But it takes a disastrously wrong turn toward the end that all but destroys the good work that's come before."