Id like to point out, before I go any further, that despite being outside the perceived target audience for your average rom-com (i.e., Im not a girlie), Im not entirely adverse to giving them positive reviews. Over the last few years Ive given credit, where its due, to a string of entries into the genre, including 50 First Dates, Anything Else, The Girl Next Door and the gimmicky 13 Going On 30. In other words, quite a few of them. The Wedding Date, unfortunately, will not be getting added to that list any time soon.
Its yawn-provokingly one-dimensional premise involves a single woman, Kat (Debra Messing), who hires herself a man-whore, Nick (Dermot Mulroney), to accompany her at her half-sisters wedding in London. So they fly to England, were introduced to some painfully uninteresting side characters, they predictably decide that they like each other with or without the exchange of cashola, and er thats about it, really. Seriously, thats it movie over.
Utilizing a humourless screenplay by Dana Fox based on Elizabeth Youngs book Asking for Trouble, this is a tale devoid of any memorable redeeming features. I would say it was going through the motions, but in truth it doesnt even bother to do that: it never takes any time to let us in on where or when this twosomes relationship suddenly veered away from the professional, and once they do finally decide to get it on theres no real obstacle in the way which would suffice for us to feel for them.
Sure, Messing and Mulroney are a photogenic pair, but shes given next to nothing to do and hes completely without charm or spark (in fact, a bit like the character he plays, he never seems like anything other than a guy doing a job for a wage). In all honesty, this is a lacklustre production in every department and one that should never have made it to the big screen. Wait for it to come out on DVD, which it should have done in the first place and then pick something else.