By Kit Bowen
Story
Weddings--they're always fun. The tension, the drunkenness, the cold feet, the wacky family dynamics. Good times. For single gal Kat Ellis (
Debra Messing), going to her sister's wedding in merry ole England also means hiring one of New York's premier male escorts, Nick Mercer (
Dermot Mulroney), to pose as her new boyfriend. Kat's primarily goal is to make her ex-fiancé Jeffrey (
Jeremy Sheffield), who dumped her two years ago, jealous. Yes, her solution crosses a few morally dubious lines, plus costs her a tidy $6,000, which she had to drain from her 401K. But no matter. The insightful and charismatic Nick is a showstopper, "the Yoda of escorts," convincing everyone that he and Kat are madly in love, including Kat. She's soon feeling things she's never before felt. Well,
duh. He's, like, the perfect guy--that's his
job. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure how this is going to turn out.
Acting
Will & Grace's
Debra Messing is quite appealing in her first feature starring role, but she really isn't straying too far from her dizzy, Emmy-winning alter TV ego. Kat is a glorified Grace: smart, attractive but insecure, a little klutzy and certainly not afraid to be seen with smudged mascara and bad hair. The coiffed and well-manicured
Mulroney, on the other hand, gets to be a smooth-talkin' hunk through the whole film. After playing a mullet-haired idiot in
About Schmidt, it must have been refreshing for
Mulroney. Kat's no-nonsense mother, played by the always-good character actress
Holland Taylor, and her self-absorbed sister Amy, played by
Catch Me If You Can's
Amy Adams, do their best not to fall into the "dysfunctional family" clichés. But it's the Brits in the cast--including
Jack Davenport (
The Talented Mr. Ripley) as Amy's earnest husband-to-be Edward,
Sheffield as Ed's best mate, the aforementioned cad Jeffery, and
Sarah Parish as Kat and Amy's madcap cousin T.J.--that add the right amount of
Four Weddings and a Funeral joie de vivre.
Direction
The Wedding Date is formulaic and predictable, but here's what it does right: From the start, director
Clare Kilner (
How To Deal) doesn't bog the film down with a lot of back story, i.e. superfluous scenes of Kat depressed, talking to her friends about hiring an escort, calling the escort, etc. Instead, as she's nervously rushing around, getting ready to fly to London, we see the progression: photos of Kat and the ex lying around, an article from a magazine about Nick on the bed, and, most importantly, Nick's voice on an answering machine assuring her it'll all be OK.
Kilner wisely chooses to concentrate on the wedding, which has all the romanticism and comic elements built right in. Pumped up by engaging performances, you tend to forgive all the contrivances and manipulations because, darn it, you're just having a pleasant time.