Meet-cute comedies about star-crossed couples were gems in the 1930s, when screwball repartee was one of the glimmering assets of the studio system. Just in time for Valentine’s Day, “Music and Lyrics” is a product of more a contemporary assembly line that usually produces three distinct models: The “Hugh Grant,” the “Matthew McConaughey,” and the “Adam Sandler.”

Since “Music and Lyrics” is of the first order, viewers can expect a bundle of dry, self-deprecating British wit rather than Texas swagger or doofus-savant pyrotechnics. Drew Barrymore plays Sophie, the klutzy young woman who comes by the penthouse of Alex Fletcher (Mr. Grant) to spray his plants. Alex is a faded, jaded vocalist for a 1980s British boy band who has maintained his lifestyle by gigging at high school reunions and theme parks. When his manager (Brad Garrett) engineers a shot at penning a song for a nymphette pop star, Alex panics. He can’t write a lyric for beans. The singer, played with sublime vacuity by Haley Bennett, wants to hear something ASAP. Unfortunately, this advocate of “Buddhism in a thong” has all the creative instincts of … well, Britney Spears.

Through the anticipated sequence of unlikely events, Alex discovers that Sophie has a knack for devising clever rhymes on the spot. After much cajoling, she’s persuaded to help Alex write the song, which becomes their excuse to, inevitably, sleep together — then fight, poke at each other’s self-esteem, break up, then get back together in a soaring, dramatic finale, as Alex — yes! — finally conquers his fear of expressing what’s in his heart.

As such, most of the film’s pleasure banks on affection for Ms. Barrymore, whose vulnerable nature is played for maximum effect. Given the screenplay’s limited ambitions, that’s good enough for date night — or your next cross-country flight. Mr. Grant, strangely, seems a little old for his part, stiffly pressed into tight jeans and looking prematurely wrinkly. His efforts to evoke a teen sex symbol at middle age are central to the comic intentions here, which also yield a few parodies of MTV-era pop contrivances. The problem with that, of course, is that those contrivances are already self-parodies.