Love may be a many-splendored thing, but when it comes to capturing the euphoria of new romance on the silver screen, it can be a hard sell. We all know the flashy love epics, where seduction occurs naturally and effortlessly between two impossibly beautiful people, usually via love at first sight. But what of the movies in which two ordinary humans scratch and claw their way through a maze of neuroses, foibles, and missed opportunities to find that love is possible even for the distinctly less than perfect?

Just about every romance Woody Allen has ever made fits into this category, and so does “Ghost Town,” a romantic comedy built around the hilarious and not-quite-hunky British comedian Ricky Gervais. More a man who could win a woman’s heart by tickling her funny bone, Mr. Gervais’s characters need time to work their conversational mojo, lest the target of their affection catch sight of a striking extra. And that’s why “Ghost Town,” though a competent comedy, ultimately fails in the romance department: It shortchanges the dialogue and leaves Mr. Gervais vulnerable to the charge that he’s just not an entirely believable leading man.

Mr. Gervais has long flaunted an ingenious sense of comedic timing and a love for squirming that makes us bask in his awkwardness. In the British version of the TV show “The Office,” unlike the more genteel American version, we didn’t want to hug the boss for being such an adorable mess of a man; we wanted to punch Mr. Gervais’s character square in the jaw. The manager, as he played him, was a slimy, slippery guy, always readjusting his necktie in a subconscious bid to assert his superiority, always giddy when given the chance to tell someone he did something wrong. Across his résumé, Mr. Gervais’s mostly harmless antagonists are arrogant, unlikable losers, and though their ability to make us chuckle makes them slightly endearing, they almost always fall prey to the same egocentric habits.

The first half of “Ghost Town” nestles the actor in familiar territory. Mr. Bertran Pincus is a cynical, sarcastic, and generally unlikable New York dentist who dies momentarily mid-colonoscopy and finds himself surrounded in that post-mortem moment by a group of strangers. It isn’t until later that he realizes that, thanks to his brief brush with death, Pincus can now see and hear the dead. Similarly, realizing that someone in the waking world can see and hear them, these transparent zombies start following Pincus around, begging him to help them with their unfinished business.

Living passersby see Pincus talking into the air, reacting to personalities that they cannot see. Is he using one of those hands-free phones? No, he’s really talking to the air. Adding insult to injury, the grouchy schlub is relentlessly hounded by a handsome, dashing poltergeist named Frank (Greg Kinnear). While Pincus is looking miserable, Frank is looking good, and he’s no saint, either. Frank repeatedly bugs Pincus to visit his wife, Gwen (Tea Leoni), not because he loves her but because this adulterous, philandering hornball wants Pincus to foil Gwen’s impending marriage plans.

Of course, sparks fly when Pincus meets Gwen, revealing that, yes, even this grinch has a heart. But this romance is so rushed and arbitrary that it feels like a forced addition to a film that was perfectly funny as a buddy comedy between the dentist and the dead guy. All things considered, “Ghost Town” is far more successful as a comic twist on “The Sixth Sense” than as a remake of “Just Like Heaven,” building to a romantic climax in which Pincus makes a sweet but empty gesture. Audiences will buy Mr. Gervais as the curmudgeon, but “Ghost Town” doesn’t spend all that much time selling us on Mr. Gervais as the dashing man of Gwen’s dreams.

Nevertheless, it says something about “Ghost Town,” and the sensibilities of director David Koepp (who, most recently, wrote “Indiana Jones and Kingdom of the Crystal Skull”), that most audiences will arrive at the end of the film wanting to believe in this love story, all rationality be damned. Even if Mr. Gervais isn’t the most believable love interest, “Ghost Town” will nevertheless tug on the heartstrings, and although some of the emotions seem forced, Pincus’s grouchy jokes hint at something sweeter beneath the surface.

ssnyder@nysun.com