"A Piece of Eden" is a good-hearted film with many virtues, although riveting entertainment value is not one of them. It's a family comedy that ambles down well-trodden paths toward a foregone conclusion, neither disturbing nor challenging the audience. It was filmed in and around LaPorte, Ind., and is in limited theatrical release on its way to video. The only review it has collected so far comes from a Utah critic, Fawna Jones, who finds it predictable, and describes it quite accurately: "This is a movie for those who generally stay away from the theater for fear of being offended and who like their movies to have happy endings." Going to a movie so you won't be offended is like eating potato chips made with Olestra; you avoid the dangers of the real thing, but your insides fill up with synthetic runny stuff. Watching "A Piece of Eden," I found myself wanting to be shocked, amazed or even surprised. The most unexpected thing in the movie is a machine that shakes apple trees to make the apples fall off. That could have prevented a lot of heartbreak in "The Cider House Rules." The film opens in New York, where Bob Tredici (Marc Grapey) runs the struggling Television Publicity Bureau with his secretary, Happy (Rebecca Harrell). She's been late four out of the last five days, and even more ominously, has a psychological block that prevents her from pronouncing the word "publicity" correctly when she answers the phone. (She comes from a family of high-powered analysts and thinks her block may be approach avoidance.) Bob gets a call from northwest Indiana, where his family has run a fruit farm since time immemorial. His father Franco (Robert Breuler) is dying. Bob has an unhappy relationship with the old man but returns home anyway to learn that the patriarch has rallied enough to spend endless hours in a hospital bed in the living room, making life miserable for everyone with his salt-of-the-earth routine. Franco plans to leave the farm not to Bob but to a relative who has stayed behind in Indiana.