Garry Marshall's latest fairy tale, "Raising Helen," believes that sex in the city is no match for a full house in Queens. The movie possesses all the cloying cuteness and soft-edged drama that we've come to expect from pro's pro Marshall ("Pretty Woman," "The Princess Diaries"), who has made a career (and a lot of money) from providing moviegoers with crowd-pleasing fantasies that bear little relation to the hard realities of life.

Thanks to a twinkly Kate Hudson and a crinkly Joan Cusack, "Helen" is actually a slight cut above some of Marshall's other movies - that is, until the filmmakers go to the Well of Manufactured Conflicts once too often and the movie dissolves into a puddle of effortless resolutions. But hard work (be it physical or emotional) is a foreign concept in Marshall's universe, where all a kid has to do to get over the death of both his parents is take a trip to the Central Park Zoo - preferably with Simon and Garfunkel singing over a sweet montage of the day's highlights.

There are actually three orphans in "Raising Helen": 15-year-old aspiring Jenny From the Block Audrey (Hayden Panettiere), the skull-drawing (but completely nonthreatening) Henry (Spencer Breslin) and button-cute Sarah (Abigail Breslin). They go to live with their Aunt Helen (Hudson) after their mom and dad are killed in a car crash. (We learn the sad news 12 minutes into the movie, five minutes after a raucous family sing-along to Devo's "Whip It," which is finally recognized for the profound anthem that it is.)

That Helen was picked as Instant Mom is a shock to everyone. Henry's concise reaction sums it up best: "We're in deep (doo-doo)." Helen lives in Manhattan, works for a modeling agency and, like Alicia Bridges, she loves the nightlife and has got to boogie. The other sister, supermom Jenny (Cusack), would have been the logical guardian. After all she has the "mom" haircut and lectures the unborn child in her womb whenever it kicks. ("It's never too early to start learning manners," Jenny reasons.)

So you have two movies: Helen adjusting to her new life as mom, learning that sex with bubble-wrapped male models isn't nearly as fulfilling as raising three kids in Queens. And then there's the more interesting conflict between the sisters, with the screenplay (credited to Jack Amiel and Michael Begler) sometimes touching on thorny resentments that have festered for years.

But just occasionally. Marshall isn't about to let issues like grief and unfulfilled dreams intrude on the sweetness that embalms his movies. So there's well-executed adorableness with dead turtles, indelible ink markers and bat-wielding Indian neighbors, not to mention a romance with a "sexy man of God" (John Corbett, playing a Lutheran pastor). It's all pleasant and painless and about as contemporary as Marshall's 1950s sitcom "Happy Days." The Fonz would give it a thumbs-up.