The Wedding Date DVD Review:

I can’t help but wonder what the filmmakers were thinking when they began to film The Wedding Date. Pretty Woman worked, so why not take two attractive and charming actors and make another version of the film with a male prostitute? It may have sounded like a good idea at the time, and I’m certain that there were even a few thirteen year old girls that fell for the forced sentimentality and raunchy sexual dialogue, but there is no excuse for the grown adults that had a part in creating this atrocity to good taste. In concept the film really should have worked, except for the fact that it is a film for adults with the maturity of a melodramatic schoolgirl.

Kat Ellis ( Debra Messing) is returning home to her sister’s wedding in which her ex-fiancé is the best man. In a desperate attempt to win him back Kat hires a male escort to make him jealous. Luckily her male escort is Nick (Dermot Mulroney), a charming and intelligent escort with the ability to win over the whole family.

It isn’t the plot which is the problem because it has come to be expected that romantic comedies will follow a rather narrow and generic path. The real problem came with the dialogue and even the acting. The best friend character is one of the expected elements in these kinds of films, but Kat’s best friend is a horrifically foul mouthed British cousin. Nearly everything which comes out of her mouth is meant to be funny when it actually does a great deal to tear the film of any class or dignity that it may have had otherwise.

Nearly as bad as the obscene dialogue was Dermot Mulroney. Although there have been many roles in which I found him believable enough, he stumbles over most of the cheesy dialogue so bad that it almost seems as though he is reading it. Fortunately Debra Messing seems to survive somehow and is actually quite sweet as Kat. Unfortunately it is just too little to make this film work.

The DVD has a typical menu which makes the film look far more romantic than it deserves. The special features include deleted scenes which are useless, an interview with Debra Messing which works very hard to make the film seem great, and commentary with Debra Messing.



Ryan Izay