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Two stars (Fair)
Rated: PG-13 (fine for all ages)
Now playing
A few weeks ago, Hollywood dished up the male-fantasy romantic comedy, "Forgetting Sarah Marshall," so it only seems fair to have the female wish fulfillment flick "Made of Honor" dominating the multiplexes this week.
Critics have been mostly unkind to the Patrick Dempsey-Michelle Monaghan vehicle, but audiences endorsed it last weekend with a healthy box-office take.
The movie suffers from the same problems that seem to plague all romantic comedies these days — lack of originality and weak plotting — but it's an attractively mounted bit of froth with two appealing lead performances.
Screenwriters Adam Sztykiel and Deborah Kaplan have blended "When Harry Met Sally," "My Best Friend's Wedding" and a few other contemporary romantic comedies to come up with a painless tale of two 30ish friends who slowly warm up to the idea that they should be romantic partners as well.
Hannah (Monaghan) and Tom (Dempsey) met and formed a non-sexual bond when they were students at Cornell a decade ago and have remained friends in Manhattan as their careers soared and romantic partners have come and gone.
"Made of Honor" presents a relationship that might be rather rare in cities these days — an attractive straight man and a beautiful woman, in their prime dating years, who spend every Sunday together and bring each other up to date on their romantic adventures during the
The film gets into the same question that newspaper and magazine column writers debated two decades ago when "When Harry Met Sally" was a hit: Can single men and women be friends without romance intruding?
As much as women seemed to endorse the notion, the Meg Ryan-Billy Crystal movie ended with the two characters happily married and it is not giving much away to reveal that "Made of Honor" heads in the same general direction.
"Forgetting Sarah Marshall" shows its hero finding a beautiful girl with stereotypical guys' values — raunchy partying and sleeping around — who is nevertheless ready to become Ms. Right for the movie's doofus protagonist.
The hero of "Made of Honor" is presented as a love-em-and-leave-em lothario who finally wakes up to the fact that there is a gorgeous, smart and witty woman he has been taking for granted for 10 years — best friend Hannah.
Tom finally sees the light after Hannah goes on a business trip to Scotland, falls head over heels in love with a rich and handsome Scot (Kevin McKidd), and comes back to the city with the announcement she will marry the man in a few weeks.
Hannah doesn't seem to have any really close female friends so she asks Tom to be her maid of honor. He realizes he must stop the wedding — ala Julia Roberts in "My Best Friend's Wedding."
The women at the screening I attended didn't seem to mind the notion that Hannah would rush into marriage without really thinking it through and would need to be "saved" by another man who says — after 10 years — that he knows what is best for her.
Apparently, Patrick Dempsey (of "Grey's Anatomy") is so dishy to his core female audience that he can do no wrong and the idea of waiting a decade for Tom to see the light is a perfectly acceptable premise for a romantic comedy aimed at women.
The movie makes "My Best Friend's Wedding" look all the more remarkable for having the guts to allow Julia to let go of her male "best friend" in the final reel.
