The Wedding Date - PBP | AccessAtlanta

'The Wedding Date:' Lukewarm reception

By Hap Erstein
Palm Beach Post

Not all movies are meant to linger long in our memories, like the uninspired and largely forgettable The Wedding Date.

Vaguely diverting as you watch it, as long as you do not mind its patently preposterous premise, you will be hard pressed to remember this one in six months.

Universal Studios

'The Wedding Date'

The verdict: An entirely forgettable, derivative nuptials sitcom.

Director: Clare Kilner
Starring: Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney
Run time: 90 minutes
Release date: Feb. 4, 2005
Rating: PG-13 for sexual content including dialogue
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On the web
Official movie site
View the trailer
-- Trailers require Quicktime

By August, you'll be wondering:

Was that the one in which Will & Grace's Debra Messing made a misguided stab at movie stardom?

Was that the one that swiped the plot of Pretty Woman, but with a male hooker?

Was that the one about the date-challenged New York career woman whose half-sister's wedding is set in England, presumably because the locale proved lucky for Four Weddings and a Funeral?

Was that the one where Drew Barrymore falls for Adam Sandler?

OK, except for the last question — that was The Wedding Singer, trivia fans — the correct answer is "all of the above."

As novice screenwriter Dana Fox would have us believe, efficient but ditzy airline customer service agent Kat Ellis (Messing), an attractive but insecure and lonely lass, hires a male escort for $6,000 to accompany her across the pond and pose as her boyfriend, in order to make her ex-fiancé Jeffrey — the best man to her half-sister Amy's intended — jealous. Aw, c'mon.

Although it is meant to be a strictly platonic, business-like arrangement, you get no points for guessing that Kat will fall in love with Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney), the impossibly handsome, impeccably mannered, wise as Yoda gigolo, who pretends to be a shrink and then deftly psychoanalyzes everyone in earshot. Nor do you earn your clairvoyance merit badge for predicting that for the first time ever Nick will violate his professional detachment rule and get emotionally involved with Kat.

But that all happens way too early in the movie, so Fox and director Claire Kilner (How to Deal) have to invent added obstacles to delay the happy conclusion for 90 minutes.

Nick is the kind of polished stud who can look refreshed and dapper after a trans-Atlantic flight and who goes around saying things like, "I think I'd miss you, even if we'd never met."

In contrast, Kat is compulsively apologetic and looks endearingly rumpled at regular intervals throughout the movie.

Kat is only marginally different from Messing's television character and, as the cast of Friends kept learning, you have to give moviegoers something better if you want them to pay to see you. (Come to think of it, that could be Nick Mercer's philosophy too.) Messing has the likability and comic timing to make the leap to big screen stardom, but not with shoddy goods like The Wedding Date.

Maybe it's me, but five minutes after seeing Mulroney I again confuse him with Dylan McDermott and Matthew McConaughey. Perhaps he will now have the distinction of being remembered as the one who showed his tush in The Wedding Date.

That alone may be enough to draw an audience for this movie, which is banking on viewers with low expectations. But frankly, this is one Wedding invitation you can safely turn down.