Olesya Salnikova
Staff Writer
What does a single woman in her 30s do when her ex-fiancé is the best man at her sister’s wedding? She hires a professional male escort, of course.
“The Wedding Date,” directed by Clare Kilner, is the typical chick flick, complete with a heartthrob and a fairy-tale ending.
Debra Messing, of “Will and Grace,” plays Kat, an average single New Yorker — extremely uptight and completely jaded with life. After she finds out that her ex-fiancé is expected to be the best man at her younger sister’s wedding, she hires Nick, played by Dermot Mulroney of “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”
Nick is everything a desperate woman out to impress an ex could ever want. Worth all of his $6,000 fee, this escort comes with stunning movie-star looks and free therapy.
The two fly to the wedding location in London, and they go through a series of pre-wedding events where Nick is always surrounded by a crowd of women, including Kat’s very obnoxious mother.
As Kat and Nick spend more and more time together, they start to realize they might be developing more than just a professional relationship. Nick starts to fall for Kat, but the fact that he is a professional male escort makes it not-so-believable.
Meanwhile, Kat’s plan seems to be working, as her ex-fiancé starts to pursue her and want her back. What she doesn’t realize is that he’s hiding a very naughty secret, and everyone knows it except her.
Messing plays a woman who is so uptight and nervous, that it becomes a bit wearisome to watch her. Trying to incorporate the humor from “Will and Grace,” Messing fails to really convince us of her character.
She often overplays her character to the point where it’s not only unrealistic but ridiculous. When the two are forced to sleep in the same room, Kat gets paranoid and even puts pillows in the middle of the bed. The audience has to wonder, is this character a 30-year-old woman or a child?
Nick is a male escort turned saint. In the beginning of the film he portrays an unemotional professional, but it becomes unrealistic when he falls hard and fast for his employer. With a guy who has done the same routine hundreds of times with hundreds of women, it’s not very believable that he should fall in love with this one.
While the romance between the characters is cute, the actors fail to spark the screen with any real attraction. Their performance as people in love is weak and often unbelievable. Frequently, the audience has no way of knowing the difference between their pretending to be in love and their real love.
The plot itself is simple and generic, yet the film still tries to make it complex, by revealing her ex-fiancé’s shameful secret and the complications that result between the characters soon after.
Although at times laugh-out-loud funny, this film is a poor attempt at comedy. All the humor comes out of the implications of Nick’s professional career and sick family betrayals that will make your head spin. One has to question if the movie is really ethical, because it puts the idea of family into a soap-opera mindset.
A lot like “Pretty Woman,” the movie has virtually the same romantic themes and plotline but with a reversal of gender roles.
The film tries very hard to imitate the charm of “Pretty Woman” and at the same time be fresh and innovative in its own way. Compared to the original, the comedy is not so sharp and the acting is very poor.
Girls may love “Wedding Date” because of the gorgeous leading man and the cute fairy-tale ending, but unfortunately that’s about all it has to offer.
02-10-2005
