Fonda, as the Georgia of the title, must make sense of all this madness as the movie's matriarch. She's rigid about yard work and dinnertime (6 p.m. sharp). No taking the Lord's name in vain around her: She will literally make you wash out your mouth with soap (how's that for hackneyed yuks?). She still looks great in a T-shirt and jeans, though — still got those Jane Fonda Workout biceps.

Huffman, as her estranged daughter, Lilly, also looks great — polished, actually, despite her on-and-off battle with alcoholism. This is a woman who makes repeated road trips from her home in San Francisco to Georgia's in Idaho in a business suit and heels, that's how false the character feels.

At the film's start, Lilly is driving her hellcat daughter, Rachel, to grandma's house for the summer, hoping it will straighten her out before she goes to college — if she goes to college. Rachel is clearly brilliant; she knows her Bach and her Ezra Pound. But she also behaves incredibly stupidly by tormenting the locals, hitting on that nice, wholesome Mormon boy who's about to head off on a two-year mission (Garrett Hedlund), and putting her foot in her mouth about the town's veterinarian (Dermot Mulroney), whose wife and son died in a car crash.

Then all of a sudden, at the Fourth of July picnic, poof! She starts acting like a decent human being, someone who cares about others, isn't so brazen and selfish. She's actually ... nice. It's as if the reels got mixed up, and we're watching the end at the middle.

Except we're not. And we still have a good hour or so to go.

"Georgia Rule" feels like an even greater failure because its aspirations were so high. It has such star power, it's trying so hard to be poignant and meaningful, to say something about the power of family and redemption. But in the end, it's just another concoction of unbelievable characters doing unbelievable things, and telling us nothing we haven't heard before.

"Georgia Rule" is rated R for sexual content and some language. Running time: 111 minutes.