Mike Clark
Now here's a premise. In The Wedding Date, a tense New Yorker (Debra Messing) pilfers her 401(k) of $6,000 so she can hire an A-list male escort (Dermot Mulroney) to accompany her back home to her half-sister's wedding in London - all to make the ex-fianc?? who dumped her jealous.
Given Mulroney's well-known penchant for lockjawed dialogue deliveries, you have to wish she had spent her money more wisely. But his character is the only A-list component of this pitiful little feel-good comedy with seamy underpinnings. This guy gets the six grand just for showing up; sexual services cost more.
The movie goes wrong from the start by simply throwing us into the action and asking us to identify with Messing's desperate scheme. Hiring a gigolo wouldn't be something she'd want to come up in, say, her confirmation hearing for secretary of state.
Director Clare Kilner (Mandy Moore's How to Deal) has problems throughout figuring how to play this sunny/gloomy story.
The parents are sweet, but the sister has her own dark past. The ex probably needs professional help, but his psychological rot is played for laughs. And Mulroney doesn't show much emotion at all.
Messing has the vulnerability for the role, but she doesn't get any help, and it's painful to watch her flail. In fact, it's hard to see how anyone even agreed to sign on for the picture. There must have been the promise of a really tangy wine vintage in the final reception scene.
Throughout it all, we hear clunky echoes of Four Weddings and a Funeral. For this grim comedy, dirges will likely be playing when the box office grosses are reported.
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