Catch and Release

Catch and Release centres on Gray Wheeler, a young woman whose life is upended when her fiancé dies shortly before their wedding. As she tries to rebuild, she moves in with two of his closest friends and is joined by Fritz, a childhood friend of the dead man who travels from Los Angeles to Boulder, Colorado. Gray has never liked Fritz, an arrogant advertising director and womaniser, but the two are drawn together as she uncovers secrets suggesting her fiancé was not the man she believed him to be.

The film was written and directed by Susannah Grant, marking her directorial debut. Twelve years later she directed a second feature. The screenplay was produced by Jenno Topping for Columbia Pictures and Relativity Media, and the cast is led by Jennifer Garner, with Timothy Olyphant, Kevin Smith, Sam Jaeger, Juliette Lewis and Fiona Shaw in supporting roles.

Released in October 2006, the film had a budget of 25 million US dollars and took about 16 million worldwide, so it did not recover its costs at the box office. Audiences were lukewarm: on IMDb it holds 5.9 out of 10 from more than 28,000 votes, and on TMDB it also sits at 5.9 from a much smaller sample of over 600 votes. A critics' rating of 4.6 out of 10 from 134 reviews places it below even those modest audience scores.