The fact that cute, petite Reese Witherspoon is playing the role of a hardened, stubborn, Team USA softball player is the first hint that something is wrong with the movie “How Do You Know”. Witherspoon tries her best to pull off the tough-girl demeanor of her character Lisa Jorgenson but, even if her own bubbly disposition wasn’t constantly showing through, there were some major inconsistencies with the character.

Despite Jorgenson’s apparent strength and independence, she accepts the offer to move in with Owen Wilson’s character Matty Reynolds, a highly immature professional baseball player who she has only been dating for about a week, and who she seems barely able to tolerate.

The movie itself seems to struggle for focus. Jorgenson deals with being cut from Team USA after a lifetime of playing softball. George Madison, played by Paul Rudd—whose trademark goofiness might be a bit excessive but makes him the only character capable of drawing a real laugh from the audience—deals with an impending lawsuit against him, as well as his somewhat pathetic struggle to win Jorgenson’s heart. It’s unclear whether the movie is really about the characters’ individual internal struggles or the flimsy love triangle that forms between Witherspoon, Wilson and Rudd.

The movie raises all sorts of issues that are never resolved, and those that are resolved seem to lack both believability and any sense of importance. By the time it’s over, the audience still has no idea how they’re expected to feel, what they’re expected to have learned, or who they’re expected to support.