Love Field is earnest, compassionate, smoothly directed, and something of a crock. Despite its humanist veneer, the movie, at heart, is a soft-pedaled thriller, with too many garish twists and turns. And Lurene and Paul are simply too brave, soulful, and well meaning to be believed: The scene in which their friendship climaxes with a steamy kiss might be more convincing if it didn’t feel like the meeting of two saints. The best reason to see the movie is Pfeiffer, who gives a finely modulated performance, showing us the delicate tug-of-war between Lurene’s rigid homespun values and her better nature. Yet those values are defeated a little too easily; by the end, even the layered emotionalism of Pfeiffer’s work is blanketed by the film’s need to see her as a role model. Love Field is designed to give audiences an easy way to feel good about themselves. It sprinkles its characters’ very ordinariness with liberal fairy dust. C+<\/p>\n