The behind-the-scenes, off-screen story of writer-director Amy Heckerling’s I Could Never Be Your Woman is a long and winding one. How a film from the director of Clueless, and starring Michelle Pfeiffer and Paul Rudd, sat on the shelf for years and couldn’t win theatrical distribution — even after last year’s warmly received Hairspray, Stardust and Knocked Up helped put the two actors back on the public radar — is hard to believe. And yet it’s all true — a convoluted tale of botched financial assessments, scotched release dates and swapped capital involving the movie’s original backer and domestic distributor, indie upstart Bauer Martinez.

The movie itself, thankfully, is far less messy and angst-inducing. Probably as of yet the only film in which Pfeiffer can be glimpsed sporting an Iron Maiden T-shirt, I Could Never Be Your Woman‘s narrative is obviously to at least a small degree autobiographical, centering as it does around a successful, respected entertainment industry pro facing struggles both creative and personal. Pfeiffer plays Rosie, the head writer/show runner on You Go Girl, a teen-flavored, Saved By the Bell-type sitcom starring the decidedly non-teenage Brianna Minx (Clueless alum Stacey Dash). In her 40s, Rosie’s a loving mother to a smart, middle school-aged daughter, Izzie (Saoirse Ronan, of Atonement), and has a good if sometimes exasperated relationship with her ex-husband Nathan (Jon Lovitz). When Rosie becomes smitten with Adam Pearl (Rudd), a newly cast actor much younger than herself, though, she finds her world turned upside down.

As Rosie and Adam fall into a relationship and a reticent Rosie then pulls back, Heckerling sets up some of the traditional air-quote rom-com complications (a meddling secretary, Jeannie, saves a saucy picture of Adam’s costar as the wallpaper on his cell phone) and then seemingly breezes past them, only to arrive back at the same sort of core, nagging doubts regarding the age disparity between the pair. The plotting itself here is nothing new, and Heckerling doesn’t till much new psychological ground. That hardly matters, though, given her gift with dialogue and the quality of actors appearing here. (In addition to the aforementioned main players, Fred Willard costars as Rosie’s perpetually distracted boss, while Tracey Ullman is Mother Nature, who shares a few pointed conversations with Rosie.)

Owing to its industry backdrop, the movie has plenty of Los Angeles in-jokes, some of which are hilarious (Izzie and her friend crank call celebrities from Rosie’s Blackberry, which leads to a scene involving Henry Winkler reading Jean-Paul Sartre), and some of which fall flat (rescuing Izzie from being bullied, Rosie spits to the offending kid, “Hey Noah, I heard Brad Pitt‘s firing your dad’s law firm”). Rosie’s constant battles with network censors are also amusing. There’s some connective tissue missing, yes, but I really fell for this Woman; it’s wry and spirited, and Pfeiffer and Rudd are a truly great match.

Presented in a matted widescreen format with an English Dolby digital 5.1 audio track and optional Spanish and English subtitles, the PG-13 rated I Could Never Be Your Woman comes housed in a regular Amray case with snap-shut hinges, which are always a nice touch. In addition to a trailer for the movie, there are also three deleted scenes, two of which — centering around a conversation between Rosie and her daughter about blowjobs — obviously confirm an R-rated cut of the movie, if an early, poorly dubbed sequence with Jeannie didn’t already properly arouse suspicions. Heckerling also confirms some of the autobiographical inspiration in a droll, slowly paced joint audio commentary track with producer Cerise Hallam Larkin, citing specifically as ripped from real life a scene in which Willard’s TV exec is busy playing computer solitaire while taking an in-person meeting. Other tidbits and tossed-off asides — concerning everything from Lovitz’s late replacement of another actor to bon mots like, “When you do a spit take, you have to make sure the liquid is backlit, otherwise you miss how well the person is able to project” — are endearing and amusing. Most interesting, though, may be the fact that due to its British financing, the film had to shoot for six weeks in London at Pinewood Studios and only three weeks in Los Angeles, as well as cast a significant number of English, Australian and Canadian actors. Maybe that fact gave Beyonce Knowles pause in approving a song Heckerling wistfully mentions as perfect for Pfeiffer’s first post-coital work arrival. Thankfully, Will Smith had no such qualms; he approved use of his skip-to-the-loo “Switch” at a discounted rate, which makes for plenty of fun when Rudd drops some mad dance moves. B+ (Movie) C (Disc)