Andrew Schwartz Meryl Streep plays Dr. Lisa Metzger and Uma Thurman plays recent divorcee Rafi in "Prime." Click photo for larger image. "Prime" Rating: PG-13 for sexual content and language. Starring: Uma Thurman, Meryl Streep, Bryan Greenberg. Director: Ben Younger. "Prime" Web site

Uma Thurman and Meryl Streep are not so much past their own as past Ben Younger's "Prime." He's the man who not only directed but wrote -- and thus has no one but himself to blame for -- the "therapeutic new comedy" at hand.

The ad adjective is a reference to Streep's role as ever-so-traditional Dr. Lisa Metzger, longtime therapist to Thurman as ever-so-needy Rafi, a 37-year-old divorcee. Rafi falls in love with 23-year-old Ben (Bryan Greenberg), a not-so-budding artist. Despite the odds and a big difference in needs, their romance is progressing rather sweetly and believably, thank you.

But it's Manhattan, where age matters. A 14-year gap between a female professional and a male amateur isn't good to start with. It's going to get worse when everyone figures out that the young boyfriend is the old therapist's son.

Ben will be Oedipally-challenged in more ways than one, which will produce a few genuinely funny and poignant moments. Sad-eyed Uma with newly, deeply etched age lines works hard. So does Greenberg, a laid-back, likable John Kennedy Jr. type. Uptight Meryl in nerdy hairdo and glasses fiddles with her overlarge beads and frets about neglecting to introduce her son to Q-tips.

	Andrew Schwartz Bryan Greenberg portrays the 23-year-old painter David in love with the 37-year-old photography producer Rafi in "Prime." Click photo for larger image.

There's a snooty black doorman with a withering stare that gets laughs.

There's also a boom mike that keeps getting in the frame.

Director Younger enjoyed critical success in 2000 with "Boiler Room," a cutting-edge dramedy about Wall Street. Perhaps too much success. It was sufficient, at any rate, to persuade him and his producers that what might have constituted a good half-hour episode of a TV sitcom could be stretched into a full-length feature.

No way was this material really enough or really ready for "Prime" time.