My initial impression was not good, as the camera drooled over Jennifer Lopez with her formulaic-sexy character. She's a cop who wears Police tee shirts when she exercises, reclines on her bed wearing her body armour, and knows how to beat up criminals when she has to. But we know that inside, she's lonely and hungry for love. She hangs out with her colleagues, but cannot talk to them about her inner feelings.

We get to see that Lopez goes drinking with the guys, but goes home alone. She talks to her work partner about an unsuccessful date, who assumes all he wanted to do was get into her knickers. On the contrary that was all she wanted, and it was the conversation that was the problem. If we did not understand that Lopez is one of those unconventional tough-sexy-vulnerable types, we do at this point.

Then we are introduced to the brooding and enigmatic admirer Catch (Jim Caviezel), who the Sunday Times described as having stubble and a "five o'clock soul". Lopez is drawn to him. She invites him up to her room but it goes badly: she is prickly and uncomfortable, and he does not like this. The relationship develops; they fight, go swimming and have sex in a park.

The sub-plots concern their respective troubled histories. Lopez got her father arrested some years ago, for beating her mother. They have been estranged ever since. Catch does not want to reveal anything about his past, and it transpires that he lost his wife and young son in a car accident, when he was driving. He was so traumatised that he blanked it out of his mind and all of his former identity. Lopez is obviously intrigued by his mystery, but also confused and annoyed because she does not know anything about him. They go out one evening and a former friend of Catch tries to make conversation with him. He denies knowing him, and being the person his friend knows he is. Lopez subsequently looks up the name the friend uses in the police database, and finds out about the accident.

The cues at the beginning of the movie suggest a superficial narrative, which is no more than a setting for a sexy actress. However the film unfolds in a perfectly entertaining and credible manner, although the lighting and camera attention applied to Lopez is sometimes irritating. Yes she is beautiful and nice to watch. No I do not want a film revolving around that fact.

I became emotionally involved with the characters, as their troubled histories became apparent. They are probably attracted to each other because they sense a mutual wound, and the promise of mutual healing. This is what happens. Lopez gets Catch to confront his prior trauma, and Catch is there to help her when she attends her parents marriage vow renewal. She is not reconciled with her father but is able to express her love for him, and her sense of loss that he is no longer in her life. He is moved to tears, but they do not speak.

This theme is realistic enough: the mystery of why we find another person attractive, and what we feel they offer us. We recognise we are incomplete by ourselves and want another person to share our lives; so what is it we need in the other person? The couple in Angel Eyes are both desperately vulnerable on the inside, but initially have no one to trust and confide in. They fall in love, and are able to resolve some of their former pain. When she leaves the vow ceremony, Catch says to Lopez that they were lucky to have her there. In other words, he loves her and accepts what she did - got her father arrested - even if her own family do not. Relationship love is like this. We discover it as we move away from the prior and consuming bond with the parents; adult and sexual love replaces parental love, based as it is on an inherent difference which rarely becomes an adult-to-adult equality.