THE WEDDING DATE
by Jane Louise
Boursaw
Rated PG-13 (for
sexual content, including dialogue. 90 minutes. Directed by Clare Kilner.
Kat Ellis (Debra
Messing) is a woman living in New York, who must fly to London for her
half-sister’s wedding. But the groom’s best man, Jeff (Jeremy
Sheffield), is her former fiancé, who dumped her a few years ago. Got
all that? So to save face, Kat hires a male escort named Nick (Dermot
Mulroney) to play the role of her fiancé. Of course, it... Ok, I won’t
end that sentence because we all know how it ends. That’s the problem
with this movie – I knew how it would end during the first five minutes.
I get the feeling
this movie was built entirely around Debra Messing’s “Will & Grace” fan
club. But you can’t draw TV fans to a movie without having something to
back it up – a believable plot line, some chemistry between the
characters, an unpredictable ending. “The Wedding Date” has none of
these.
While Messing is
charming and likeable, there’s absolutely no chemistry between her and
Dermot Mulroney, who comes across as a cold fish on screen. If he’d been
amusing, witty, even cracked a smile now and then, I could have
understood her attraction to him.
One
nagging question is the British connection: If Kat was flying “home” to
take part in the wedding, why didn’t she and her half-sister (Amy Adams)
have British accents? And why did Kat have a dozen or so pieces of
luggage if she was only going to stay a few days?
Then there was the
senseless bit at the beginning about Kat being so darn important at her
big-time (but unnamed) job that she had to give instructions on her cell
phone to someone back at the office while racing through the airport.
Well, maybe they answered all these questions during the times I was
dozing off...
THE WRAP-UP:
If you’re a Debra Messing fan AND if you’re looking for a fluffy, Dream
Whip-light romantic comedy with a lot of unanswered questions AND if you
have 90 minutes to fritter away...then sure, go ahead and see this
movie.
SCORE: 1 out
of 4 Reels.
Jane's Reel Rating
System:
One Reel – Pathetic.
Even The Force can’t save it.
Two Reels –
Tolerable. Coulda been a contender.
Three Reels –
Pleasant. Something to talk about.
Four Reels – Wow! The
stuff dreams are made of.
E-chat with me
at
jane@reellifewithjane.com - I
LOVE to talk about movies!
Read my other reviews
here.
