In Greco-Roman mythology, the Elysian Fields are the abode of the blessed spirits in the afterlife–a locale to be distinguished from the less appetizing Hades. As such it signifies bliss. Unfortunately George Hickenlooper’s film is unlikely to confer any sort of rapture on its viewers. “The Man from Elysian Fields” is a glossy soap opera that tries to elevate a conventional story about the destructive effects of adultery by conjoining it with a more high-toned tale of love, sex, creativity and betrayal among the well-to-do literati. Half of it is composed of snappy patter and pseudo-sophisticated cultural observations, while the remainder showcases situations and dialogue that would be more at home on a daytime television serial. The result is like a misguided recreation of a florid 1950s melodrama, and it has the misfortune to appear roughly simultaneously with Todd Haynes’ brilliant “Far from Heaven,” which pulls off that trick with a style and depth that Hickenlooper’s effort sorely lacks.

“Elysian Fields” centers on a unsuccessful novelist named Byron Tiller (Andy Garcia), a clever wordsmith whose first book tanked and whose second is turned down by the publisher, putting his family–supportive wife Dena (Julianna Magulies) and adorable son Nathaniel–into financial jeopardy. Desperate for cash after being refused a loan by Dena’s wealthy father (Richard Bradford, notable mostly for the crevices that have appeared between his teeth), Byron reluctantly accepts an offer from Luther Fox (Mick Jagger), a suave, snooty sort with an office down the hall from his (why the unemployed Bryan should have an office at all is never explained) to take a place on the roster of handsome male escorts associated with his Elysian Fields Agency. The job brings Bryan into contact with the lovely Andrea (Olivia Williams), the young wife of wealthy, celebrated writer Tobias Alcott (James Coburn), an aging lion who looks tolerantly on his spouse’s need for the companionship he can no longer provide. Before long, however, Bryan has become Tobias’ collaborator in the refashioning of what will be the great man’s final manuscript, under a promise of joint authorship; and his increasingly close relationship with Andrea ultimately breaks up his marriage. Predictable twists occur, until we find a chastened Byron reading from his own new novel, a chronicle of his own sad marital lapses.

Almost nothing in the picture rings true. The Tiller family ambience is bad enough: there’s the dad who’s always ready with a wisecrack that proves how intelligent he is, the doting wife, the tousled-haired tyke, the arrogant bastard of a father-in-law–it’s all too obvious for words. But as sappy as that is, the segue to the “escort service” side of things is even worse; what might have been a gender-bending take on “Belle de Jour” is instead treated as a serious dose of sap. Jagger gets by on his snide charm even though much of his narration is gruesomely precious and a sidebar in which this world-weary veteran seeks a real relationship with his sole surviving client (Anjelica Huston) reeks of the crudest scriptwriting symmetry. But it’s in the Williams-Coburn material that matters truly go awry. The “literary” atmosphere of barbed wit, elegant dissipation and simmering untrustworthiness is all surface and no content, and one sequence–in which Bryan persuades Alcott to change the Roman Empire backdrop of his novel about slaves to the contemporary world of migrant laborers (the subject of his own rejected manuscript)–is positively ludicrous. Williams is bland as the distaff part of the triangle, and while Coburn puts his actual physical infirmity to good use (just the sight of his arthritic hands is painful), his performance is too clearly a curtain-call turn based on his patented gruffness and toothy smile (rather than the genuinely frightening character work he did in “Affliction”). Garcia, meanwhile, gets the easygoing ineffectuality of Tiller right, but when the poor fellow turns moody and depressed about where his life has gone, he becomes a glum bore. Of course, the best actor in the world couldn’t have pulled off Garcia’s final speech–in which Bryan recites the last words of his confessional novel to a supposedly rapt audience. The book is supposed to be wildly successful, but the prose is awful, and while the notion that it could attract readers isn’t innately implausible (many wretchedly-written novels are popular nowadays), wanting us to take it seriously in this context is a terrible lapse in Hickenlooper’s judgment.

There’s one other slip in the script that might be noted. Late in the picture, when Tiller reminds Fox that he’d once told his prospective employee that most of his other staff members were married, Luther replies, “I didn’t say ‘happily’ married. As a writer you should watch your adjectives.” “Happily,” of course, is an adverb, not an adjective. In most movies such a blunder could be forgiven, but in one that’s all about wordplay, it’s clear evidence of failure.