It's possible, being from Mars instead of Venus, that much of the resonance of a movie about a serial bridesmaid is on a frequency I can't hear.
I know, guys have the "best man" thing, about which I know a thing or two (been one twice, both marriages failed). But they seem to have utterly different significance to the sexes involved.
So my assessment of 27 Dresses -- in which Knocked Up's Katherine Heigl sets out to prove she can carry a romantic comedy without Judd Apatow's help, thank you very much -- rests on my observations based on years of exposure to romantic comedies.
One of those observations: The more formulaic a rom-com, the more hyperactive and crazy the lead actor must be to keep the movie afloat.
And from the opening scenes in 27 Dresses, Heigl runs around on the edge of derangement, in crazy motion like Doug Gilmour in the '93 playoffs. Heigl's character Jane is introduced as a child (Peyton List), saving a Bride- zilla relative from going nuclear with minutes to the ceremony by fixing the bride's bad hairdo with her little sister's ribbon.
Thus primed for a life as a perennial bridesmaid/wedding doctor, we meet Jane as an adult (Heigl), working two weddings in one night with the help of a cabbie on call and two different dresses. She's caught in the act by Kevin (James Marsden), a journalist for a big-deal New York paper who writes the romantic wedding copy for the society page under a pseudonym.
Being duplicitous like most journalists, Kevin doesn't tell her about his job, and when he finds her lost appointment book, doesn't give it back to her right away, choosing to use it as a springboard for a wedding-page feature on a compulsive "super-bridesmaid" (all the while with a twinkle in his eye that says he's sweet on her).
In fact, pretty much everything Kevin does in pursuit of his story (including not telling Jane that he's doing a story on her) would be a firing offence at most newspapers, which is nothing new in Hollywood's portrayal of my profession.
Jane is ostensibly a sweet girl, overdue for her own "special day." But she just seems like a crazy person, wound tighter than a corset. This vibe is amped when her supermodel sister Tess (Malin Akerman) comes to town and steals the heart of Jane's boss George (Edward Burns), for whom Jane has carried an unrequited torch for years. (Jane is George's personal assistant, which it turns out is a convenient and legal way to act like a stalker).
In Knocked Up, Apatow did a pretty good job of smashing the rom-com template (and in gratitude, Heigl has given interviews dissing him as "sexist").
Here, Heigl finds herself in the old-school model -- heroine is involved (in this case obsessed) with the wrong guy and rejects the right guy.
It'll take them 80 minutes or so to realize they're perfect for each other.
And along the way, there'll probably be a drunken karaoke scene. In this case, Jane and Kevin bellow Bennie And The Jets along with the jukebox in a crowded bar.
That Heigl's desperate flailing manages to make a movie this trite mildly entertaining speaks to her talent. Now maybe she can bury the hatchet with Apatow and they can make another good romantic comedy.
(This film is rated PG)
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