Sweetie-pie

Joe, we’re made to understand, learns to accept women as, well, people. With Connie, he’s blissfully free from erotic expectation; he’s humbled by Ellen’s goodness. But Joe doesn’t look as if he needs sensitivity training; he’s pretty much the same sweetie-pie from beginning to end.

"The patients get frustrated; they take it out on us," says a woman who has worked at the surgery for 20 years. "They scream and shout at us, but when they go in to see the doctor they're like little sweetie-pies. I've been called an effing bitch, and then they've gone into the doctor and they're as humble as anything."

The “king of Bollywood,” Shah Rukh Khan, rarely plays the villain. His specialty has been goofball sweetie-pies: romantics, naïfs, the occasional superhero with a runny nose.