Director Bruce Paltrow and screenwriter John Byrum have fashioned a simple entertainment that's by and large carried on the backs of its actors, some who are wonderful and others who are merely likable. The story links three separate pairs of characters whose lives will converge at a karaoke championship in Omaha, Neb. Huey Lewis is a crusty but innately appealing karaoke hustler who earns big bucks by duping people into thinking he can't sing, only to get up and win the evening's purse every time. He has reluctantly become reunited with Gwyneth Paltrow, the daughter he has never really acknowledged. Paul Giamatti is an endlessly traveling businessman who suddenly snaps and heads for the open road, picking up hitchhiker and ex-con Andre Braugher. Finally, Scott Speedman plays an underachieving cabdriver who leaves his cheating girlfriend and suddenly gets pounced on by Maria Bello, a streetwise, back-talking urchin who makes her money any way she can -- and not always by singing. The one factor that connects them, with the exception of Speedman, is that they can all, more or less, sing.

Or maybe it should be said that they all pour whatever they've got into the three minutes of fame they can grab in this or that karaoke bar. "Duets" is a movie about enthusiasm that overshoots and sometimes substitutes for talent. But instead of fixating on which of these people can or can't sing, it asks us to believe, as they do, that of course they sound great -- simply because they've willed it so. In that respect, the way "Duets" treats its characters is refreshing. There are brief moments when it reminds us that plenty of people enjoy karaoke at the expense of their audience (during one scene an Asian businessman warbles tunelessly in the background), but "Duets" isn't out to make anyone look ridiculous.

Several of the actors do more than their share to compensate for the movie's lax pacing. Giamatti is both wryly funny and touching. When he gets the attention he craves by finally mustering the courage to sing Todd Rundgren's "Hello, It's Me" in a bar -- after being roundly rejected by his wife and family at home -- he makes the moment comic instead of soggily poignant. Braugher, an astonishingly gifted actor, doesn't have much to do here, but it's a wonder how he takes sodden dialogue and makes it resonate: At one point Giamatti asks him what he regrets most about his past, and he replies, with melancholy that somehow lets some light shine through, "All the things I never did -- when I had a chance to do 'em."

Bello's character seems underwritten, and the movie flails when it tries to pin some carelessly random motivation on her, but she has enough control to keep from becoming shrill. Speedman doesn't have much more to offer than his smile, but at least it's a good one.

Now playing: Read all the recent movie reviews by Salon's critics