This is such a deeply unfashionable film. I don’t think it would have been cool even 15 years ago, when films like this were a dime a dozen and still making a splash at the box office. Did you know that Sleepless in Seattle made a quarter of a billion dollars back in 1993? That wouldn’t happen anymore; not a lot of nice movies get made nowadays. Larry Crowne did, but I’ve no idea how.

Affable is as good a word as any to surmise the man. Here’s a guy who goes to work at a miserable chain store and does so with a joyful kick of the heel. He picks up trash when he needn’t, and helps his friends while asking for nothing in return. Larry Crowne is a thoroughly nice man right up until he’s fired, at which point he becomes a thoroughly nice, unemployed man. Begrudging types have been known to take their employer to tribunals, while Fight Club inspired a million shirt and tie nobodies to raise their fists in defiance. Not Larry. “I thought I was going to be employee of the month” he offers meekly, still just about smiling.

Ideally, screenplays should take their characters on a journey. Larry Crowne starts right where it ends, so what do you do with that? What it comes down to is that Larry was a good guy, is a good guy, and will always be a good guy. He meets good people. When he discovers his ex-boss now works as a pizza delivery driver, we find that even he has a kind heart. This is a script about nice people succeeding at getting by. It perpetuates the myth that working harder will always get you somewhere, and if that was ever the case, then it certainly isn’t now. Tom Hanks plays a false prophet, and I never thought I’d see the day.

Economic storms shall not weary him. The way Larry sees it, all he’s missing is the degree he skipped out on to join the navy, so he enrols for classes at a local community college. Economics is taught by Mr Sulu, Speech 217 by Julia Roberts, and I only wish they’d swapped. Takei’s class is a joyful – if fleeting – blend of market theory and sinister cackles. Hers, a watered down Bad Teacher. When she arrives to teach her first class, Mrs Tainot counts her students in the hope their numbers might fall below the legally mandated total. Thanks to a certain last minute arrival, they do not.

Larry Crowne can seem a little simple. It might suit him, but it’s still true. He has the perma-grin of Raymond Babbit as filtered through Forrest Gump, yet is neither idiot nor savant. He just seems happy, which is an emotion all too easily confused. A fellow student sees his good nature, and invites the middle-aged bookworm to join her motorcycle gang. She gets busy flirting and teaching him to stand tall in quite fashionable pants, while the lonely Mrs Tainot pours herself a stiff drink and wonders if there’s anyone out there for her. Well, wonder no more.

They say that the fired man is the forgotten man, which seems like a pretty good metaphor for this movie. It’s unlikely anyone would have missed Larry Crowne if it had never existed, and that it does only proves the rule. The film has nothing in particular to say, even within the context of a genre not exactly known for making statements. Witness to a simple man working hard to get the girl, I couldn’t help but compare it to The Terminal: an equally nothing film that somehow transcended its own basic form. This feels a lot like that would have done if it had been written by Nia Vardalos. It’s pleasing enough, I suppose; a little inspiring on occasion. But you have to give yourself permission to enjoy it, even a little, and that’s not something you could ever say about the good Viktor Navorski.