Late Review: The Wedding Date

The Wedding Date (Director: Clare Kilner) Release date: February 4

Kilner's other known work is How to Deal (this is another post where I give 800 quickie reviews). This film is based on Elizabeth Young's book Asking For Trouble. Screenplay adapted by Dana Fox in her first writing assignment.

Kat Ellis (Debra Messing) needs a date for her sister's (Amy Adams) wedding, so that she doesn't appear to be a loser, and so that she can make her ex-boyfriend Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield) super-jealous, so she hires escort Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney). Mercer is one of those perfect guys: handsome, charming, says all the right things. It won't take you long to figure out where this is headed--they're going to fall in love. The reason why people go to a movie like this is to see what conflict is going to delay the happy ending this time.

And, like most romantic comedies, that reason is usually ridiculous nonsense. Even the better-than-average Hitch had a terrible thread of nonsense that would ultimately enter the boy-loses-girl point of the story. That's to be expected. In fact, it's almost like it's a comment on love and breaking up itself--the reason is usually dumb or due to misunderstanding. What makes a movie like Hitch overall better than The Wedding Date is from the approach, and do they have anything to say about love in general. Hitch had some interesting comments, but this film has pseudo-wise (or stupid) lines like, "When you love somebody, what you've got to do is be brave enough to be loved back."

Overall, this is subpar. Messing is good, Mulroney is excellent, the vehicle is a clunker. After this and her previous film How to Deal, Kilner seems to be the queen of harmless entertainment. Before it came out, it was being called the male Pretty Woman, but this is still all about the girl. This has nothing to do, really, with the prostitute's change in life. It's still Pretty Woman, but the successful businessman just happens to be a whore. In any case, it looks like moviegoers sort of stayed away anyway, the film has only grossed about $30 million as of this review, which falls short of a hit--it probably will make a slight profit.