Review
THE WEDDING DATE
Starring Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney
Directed by Clare Kilner
Opens Friday, February 4
Check listings
Dearly beloved, we are gathered here today to witness the union of two dreadfully boring characters in a film with no story. If someone here knows why people should avoid this movie, speak now or forever hold your peace.
Wait! Don’t do it. Don’t go see The Wedding Date. You’ll regret it for the rest of your life.
I don’t know about you, but when I hear the words "light romantic comedy" the first thing that pops into my head isn’t male prostitution. Apparently, the world’s oldest profession is Hollywood’s second oldest storyline and The Wedding Date is the newest movie to capitalize on the tired cliché of the hooker with a heart of gold.
Kat (Debra Messing) is attending her sister’s wedding in London. Her ex-fiancé, who inexcusably dumped her two years previously, is the best man. Kat hires a male escort to be her date for the wedding in an attempt to make her ex jealous. While the whole idea of flying a strange man overseas (a hustler no less) is unbelievably dangerous, Kat is quickly put at ease when she meets her man-for-hire. Nick (Dermot Mulroney) is the perfect man, both charming and handsome.
Predictably, Kat and Nick fall in love, but for no apparent reason. I’m not kidding – I think there was a scene missing. You know the one, where someone in the wedding party discovers that Nick is a hooker and blows (no pun intended) his cover, but then they persevere and fall in love anyway. It’s not there. In fact, there is no plausible explanation why these two people would fall in love except that it’s an hour into the movie and nothing’s happened yet. You might as well get the two leads together to end this trainwreck.
Messing and Mulroney have absolutely no on-screen chemistry. Messing plays the exact same character she does on her sitcom Will and Grace – a neurotic, self-absorbed New Yorker. Mulroney gives a sad portrayal of a hustler who is bored with his profession, but the movie never touches on that. Instead they portray him as a hooker Yoda, who dispenses words of wisdom to members of Kat’s family. It’s almost as if he became a prostitute out of philanthropic goodwill. Nick’s uncanny ability to read people’s weaknesses and then become the ideal of what that person needs is just sad, not sexy.
The movie tries to fulfil a stereotypical female fantasy – that a woman can buy the perfect man just like she would a pair of Manolo Blahniks. It borrows from every romantic comedy you’ve ever seen – the Pretty Woman cackle, the Shall We Dance tango number, the Notting Hill British charm – but The Wedding Date leaves out the sexual tension that made those movies watchable. With no conflict, there is no resolution. Without a resolution, there is no love story.
So with the power vested in me, I pronounce this the worst movie I have ever seen. You may now leave the theatre. |
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