46 of 46 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Vacation for the Mind, June 18, 2005
While the plot may seem implausible, I really enjoyed this movie. Since I love all types of movies (documentary, action, comedy, drama, etc.), I saw this movie for what it was...an enjoyable way to spend some time. If you are looking for light-hearted entertainment that doesn't require you to think, then this movie fits the bill. Dermot Mulroney is great as the suave date bought by Debra Messing's character. And Messing shines as the woman who blossoms during her courtship with her date. And for those who think she's too beautiful to need to buy a date, they haven't seen the many beautiful single women of the world. Not all movies are meant to be deep and thought-provoking, some are just meant to make you smile...and this movie delivers.
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31 of 35 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Best Friend's Wedding Crossed with Pretty Woman Crossed With Four Weddings and a Funeral, December 5, 2005
The Wedding Date is a romantic comedy, and to do that formula well you either have to do the formula perfectly with perfectly cast leads or you have to come up with a unique angle. The Wedding Date tries both.
Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney make a good-looking couple. All of the women in this movie and all the women at my house were swooning over Mr. Mulroney who looks like he just stepped off the cover of one of those passionate-embracing romance novels. Ms. Messing has the looks and timing to pull off her role, which requires a decent amount of suspension of disbelief. She comes from a well-off family, but in the opening scenes we see that she is a supervisor of working stiffs. Her sister is getting married over in England and her ex-fiancee, who painfully dumped her a few years ago, is the best man. She wants to impress all the right people so she hires professional escort Mr. Mulroney - for $6,000. That is an expensive date, and I don't know any regular people who would pay anything close to that simply to impress an ex.
But we swallow that and watch the film for what it is. Debra and Dermot are likable and attractive. Sarah Parish delivers most of the best lines in the movie as saucy cousin TJ. Jack Davenport gives a strong performance as the groom - the one marrying the sister. More than even the lead characters, his world is turned upside down in the rapid-fire final act, and more than the other characters I found myself hoping that things will work out for him. Peter Egan plays Dad in a way full of fatherly love and mature wisdom.
As long as you can accept Debra Messing as a woman who would have to pay a man $6,000 to pretend to be her date, this may be the Romantic Comedy for this week.
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17 of 18 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A hot 'Date', February 4, 2005
Fresh point of view puts sizzle in story that could've been sappy
Like romance in the real world, "The Wedding Date" is part laughs and part tears.
Director Clare Kilner isn't interested in squeezing every possible gag out of every scene. Certainly, the situation that Kat Ellis (Debra Messing) finds herself in - a single woman who hires a man to pose as her date for a family wedding - is loaded with comic possibilities. But the movie also recognizes Kat's pain, embarrassment and anger.
It's this darker undercurrent that makes "The Wedding Date" more than a bubble-gum soap opera.
When we first meet her, Kat seems to be wigging out over the prospect of flying to Britain for her sister's wedding. Her situation is actually worse. The sister is a self-absorbed nightmare. The best man, Jeffrey, is Kat's ex-fiance and the man who broke her heart.
The last thing Kat wants to do is show up without a guy. So, she employs a male escort, Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney), to pretend to be her boyfriend. Kat and Nick must convince her friends and family that they are crazy in love and make Jeffrey sorry he ever left Kat.
The trip is about Kat getting over her past, and Nick allowing himself to feel love. Events take an unexpected and dark twist before everything is put to rights.
The big rap against Messing, star of the TV series "Will & Grace," is that she plays Kat as Grace Adler without Will. We still don't know if Messing can do more than look adorable and take pratfalls.
Mulroney played Julia Roberts' crush in 1997's "My Best Friend's Wedding." He was good-looking back then, but now he's beyond hot. Mulroney gives Nick a smoldering, sexy aloofness leavened with charm and a tendency to spout aphorisms about life and love.
Messing and Mulroney are surrounded by a strong supporting cast of American and British actors.
Holland Taylor plays Kat's outspoken mother, Bunny Ellis. British actress Sarah Parish is hilarious as Kat's randy and uninhibited friend, T.J. American actress Amy Adams is pitch-perfect as the spoiled sister Amy.
Kilner and screenplay writer Dana Fox bring a female point of view to "The Wedding Date." They aren't afraid to let the darker elements overshadow the humor when the story demands it, and they really explore Kat's emotional journey.
Thank goodness author Elizabeth Young's book, "Asking for Trouble," on which the film is based, wasn't turned into a "Porky's"-style sex comedy.
So many romantic comedies are tired and predictable, because they are about two people who the audience knows will be together by the end. "The Wedding Date" starts with two people who are a couple for the wrong reasons and lets us watch them couple up for the right reasons.
Pour the champagne and toast "The Wedding Date."
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