British artist, broken-hearted over the dissolution of his engagement to a brash Welsh sexpot, comes to America to relieve his sorrows; he picks the city of Hope ("18,459 people live in Hope") to begin a series of charcoal sketches on the locals, and naturally meets a new girl anxious to help him get over his lost love. Writer-director Mark Herman, adapting his script from the novel "New Cardiff" by Charles Webb (author of "The Graduate"), begins his film with a few "Graduate"-styled visual touches which are quite clever (see if you can find them). His use of soundtrack music is a bit jarring, and the editing seems flagrantly sloppy in the movie's early stages, but these faults are quickly corrected as the characters take shape. In the lead, Colin Firth works his scruffy adorableness to wonderful advantage; with his slightly crooked mouth and low-keyed impatience, he's amusingly antsy and befuddled. The ladies in his life (Heather Graham and Minnie Driver) compliment Firth nicely, while the screwballs who dot the supporting cast are enjoyable without being overtly colorful. We've been down this road before (boy-loses-girl, boy-meets-new-girl, first-girl-comes-back), and a story thread involving a faked family tree doesn't quite come to fruition, but the rest of "Hope Springs" is daffy, frisky, and often funny. *** from ****