The Wedding Date
No
one will ever admit to it, but most of the time, weddings are pretty
miserable places to be. There is too much drinking, too much eating,
the chicken dance, talking to people you don't want to know, envy, fawning
over the bride and the electric slide. No one really enjoys them
except for the participants, and even they often don't feel they live up to
the hype.
Nonetheless, anytime Hollywood wants to create a "date movie" (a.k.a. a
movie that women drag their boyfriends to), it never hurts to have the word
"wedding" or "marriage" in the title. It's a cottage industry now,
just say the term and the women are in line.
There have been a lot of them through the multiplexes in recent years –
good ones (Four Weddings and a Funeral, My Best Friend's Wedding, The
Wedding Banquet), okay ones (The Wedding Singer, Muriel's Wedding)
and bad ones (My Big Fat Greek Wedding, American Wedding, The Wedding
Planner, the remake of The In-Laws and way too many others.)
Sadly, The Wedding Date is not one of the better ones. It's not
unbearable, mind you, just very predictable and kind of dull (just like a
real wedding!).
The Wedding Date is meant as star Debra Messing's (from TV's Will &
Grace) movie coming out party – her first starring role in a
romantic comedy, though she had supporting roles in Along Came Polly
(with her in yet another wedding scene!), The Mothman Prophecies and
Hollywood Ending. While Messing is charming and likable in the
role, she hasn't learned what so many other sitcom stars who have made the
leap also haven't discovered – if people can see you for free on TV you
have to bring something new to the table for them to shell out money to see
you on the big screen. Although her character's name is Kat, and she
works for Virgin Atlantic Airways rather than doing interior design and she
doesn't live with a gay man, Messing is once again essentially playing
Grace.
The
storyline is just a bit odd too, almost an inversion of Pretty Woman.
Kat is a beautiful, neurotic, lonely career woman who is invited to her
younger half-sister's wedding in London. Adding to the humiliation
that she is older and still unattached is the fact that her former fiancé is
the best man. Her insensitive mother adds to the pressure by nagging
her about being single and miserable. (Mom is Holland Taylor, who is
usually funny but ALWAYS plays this same role... couldn't she play a nice,
thoughtful mother just once?)
Kat
decides, as most people do when invited to a wedding they don't want to go
to, to show them all by bringing the greatest date possible. However,
she steps away from protocol by deciding to hire a male escort to play her
lover. Kat is way too smart, way too beautiful, way too efficient to
have to pay a gigolo sight-unseen to go to a wedding with her. She
would do what any other single New York career woman would do in the
situation – invite a gay friend to pose as her boyfriend.
However, we are supposed to believe that Nick (Dermot Mulroney) is an
abnormally smart and sensitive paid escort; after all he wrote a story on
his experiences for The New Yorker. He has chiseled, handsome
looks, is charming, has a great butt, can get along with pretty much anyone,
and says romantic (but ridiculous) things like, "I think I would miss you
even if I never had met you."
This
is Mulroney's second wedding movie (he was the male lead in the much
superior My Best Friend's Wedding) and while he has an easy, polished
charm, you get the feeling that he is phoning it in. However, of
course, Kat's family and friends immediately fall in love with him.
The former fiancé appears to be suitably devastated that Kat is with Nick.
It is all going as planned.
And
then she goes and falls in love with Nick. That is no real surprise.
What is a bit of surprise is that this polished sex worker, a man who has
made a career out of charming women without feeling anything for them, falls
in love with his pretty, sweet, overanxious, needy client.
There are some needless complications towards the end which cause Kat and
Nick to break up. He takes offense when she isn't sure whether she is
supposed to pay him for sex (a reasonable confusion considering how they
met). She gets angry when he finds out a secret about the bride and
her ex and he doesn't tell her.
If
you have any doubt about how it will all work out, then you have never seen
a romantic comedy. Love conquers all, the bad guy gets his comeuppance
and even the horny bridesmaid gets lucky. Just like a real wedding.
(2/05)
Alex
Diamond
Copyright ©2005 PopEntertainment.com. All rights reserved.
Posted: February 1, 2005.
