THE WEDDING DATE's director, Clare Kilner, appears to have learned little since her last picture, the mediocre Mandy Moore movie, HOW TO DEAL. THE WEDDING DATE operates throughout as TV movie level fluff. Yawn.
A formula film that finds few fresh things to say, it concerns a neurotic woman who rents a date for her sister's wedding. Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney deliver passable performances as Kat Ellis and Nick Mercer, the woman and her gigolo. Strictly adhering to the rubrics for romantic comedies, Kat and Nick bicker until, of course, they fall in love.
Kat, who confesses a certain admiration of her "Yoda of escorts," only employs him in order to impress her ex-fiancé who is the best man at her sister's wedding. Although much is made of how Kat has to withdraw six thousand dollars from her 401K in order to be able to afford Nick, her parents are filthy rich, owning a London townhouse and a large English country estate.
The story's central thesis, which is repeated in the oft chance that you missed it, is: "Every woman has the exact love life she wants." Whether your relationship is good or bad, gals, it's what you subconsciously desire. It might be a sentiment worth discussing if THE WEDDING DATE were more substantial.
THE WEDDING DATE runs just 1:25. It is rated PG-13 for "sexual content including dialogue" and would be acceptable for kids around 11 and up.
By : Steve Rhodes
Source: rec.art.movies.reviews newsgroup
Rating: 2
If you're looking for a Valentine movie this weekend, this lackluster romantic comedy with an edge may be the closest you're going to come.
When shy, strait-laced, insecure Kat (Debra Messing), a Virgin Airways employee based in New York, is invited to her British half-sister's wedding and learns that her former fiancé is to be Best Man, she decides to cash in $6,000 from her 401-K to hire a handsome "male escort" to accompany her to London. Lo and behold! The hunky gigolo is Nick (Dermot Mulroney) with a comparative lit degree from Brown. And if you can believe that, this is the movie for you.
Director Clare Kilner ("How to Deal") and screenwriter Dana Fox, who adapted the story from Elizabeth Young's "Asking for Trouble," combine gender-reversal elements from "Pretty Woman" with the vivacious atmosphere of "Four Weddings and a Funeral." Certainly the inspiration isn't bad even though some of the execution is overly cliché'd and cloyingly cute.
Ebullient Debra Messing, best known for her TV sitcom "Will & Grace," does her best to fit into Julia Roberts' pumps, while Dermot Mulroney ("My Best Friend's Wedding") does the hooker-with-a-heart-and-a brain bit. Amy Adams, Jack Davenport and Jeremy Sheffield fill the bill as Bride, Groom and jerky Best Man, with Holland Taylor as Kat's steadfastly American, critical mother and Sarah Parish as a blunt British cousin. Too bad costume designer Louise Page couldn't come up with more flattering, less frothy outfits; she fails in the fashionista department.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, "The Wedding Date" is a meandering, occasionally funny, wannabe fanciful 4. But St. Hugh's Church and the English countryside look beautiful.
