"American Virgin" director Clare Kilner's third feature-length film "The Wedding Date" qualifies as an amusing chick flick co-starring Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney respectively as the leading lady and man. The premise of Dana Fox's screenplay is that our heroine Kat Ellis is flying to London to act as the maid of honor at her younger sister's wedding. The conflict is that younger sister Amy (Amy Adams of "Enchanted") has asked Kat's former fiancé to serve as best man. Kat is appropriately concerned about what impression she should make since Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield of "Last Chance Harvey") dumped her unexpectedly when they were supposed to wed. Kat decides to hire a male escort, Nick Mercer (Dermot Mulroney of "My Best Friend's Wedding") to make Jeffrey feel jealous. Predictably, what starts out as an impersonal business relationship between Kat and Nick inevitably becomes a personal relationship. Along the way, Kat learns the truth about why Jeffrey got cold feet about their impending marriage. Debra Messing makes a sympathetic character and Dermot Mulroney pulls off the stud act with no problems. The British setting adds a novelty to the proceedings and the outcome is clever without being too sappy or complicated. Scenarist Dana Fox wrote both "Couples Retreat" and "What Happens In Vegas." Fox's based her script on Elizabeth Young's book. While I enjoyed "The Wedding Date," I didn't think it was anything exceptional. The film, however, amounted to a Hollywood definition of a hit, coining $47 million dollars off a $15 million dollar budget.
Review of The Wedding Date
