Forces of Nature does have its share of laughs, and at least one half of its leading couple (Ben Affleck) pulls out a sly, interesting, well-rounded comic performance. The film is scripted by Marc Lawrence and relies heavily on cliché, and it is directed in compatible manner by Bronwen Hughes, whose ideas of lyricism and whimsy seem primarily composed of computer-enhanced sunsets, computer-generated hailstones, wind machines, and snow-like flakes that eddy about the characters as they move though their vignettes, often in stagey poses and choreographed slow-motion. The director’s allegiance to an MTV worldview aside, Forces of Nature’s predominant cinematography, by Elliot Davis, is interesting, eloquent, and lush.

The soundtrack, though perfectly all right, has the merest connection to what’s happening in the film and, when Hughes does try to deploy it as comic or emotional motif, the results are heavyhanded, sophomoric, and unintentionally trivializing. Sexual attraction is always announced by a downbeat and a few bars of heavy-bass R&B; soulfulness is assigned reverb ballads. (So much for the comedy’s level of tonal shading, character development, and wit.)

Affleck plays Ben, who is going to Savannah to be married, when he meets Sarah (Sandra Bullock) on the flight from New York to Georgia. When the plane’s take-off is perilously aborted, Ben and Sarah decide to ride to Savannah together in a rented car. A typical screwball series of misadventures befalls them as, of course, well-to-do, prudently civilized Ben and nonconformist Sarah — who sports a long resume of stopgap jobs and injudiciously chosen men — find themselves attracted to one another.

Will Ben, by the time they reach Savannah, call off his marriage? Will Sarah win back the love of the 10-year-old son whom she has not seen in more than two years? With an actress in the role of Sarah who might transcend the shallow material as Affleck does — with intelligent subtlety, an actor’s sense of credible comedy, and appealing charm — we might care.