Some films are ripped from the headlines, others are ripped from the pages of Cosmopolitan. The Wedding Date? Why mince words when you can just as easily call Debra Messing’s first headlining film How to Fall in Love with a Male Whore in 10 Days? Then again, reality is scarcely on this film’s mind: Like the saintly hooker Julia Roberts played in Garry Marshall heinous Pretty Woman, you get the distinct impression that the Madison Avenue escort Dermot Mulroney plays in Wedding Date has never shot-up, buggered someone of the same sex, or suffered through an AIDS scare. Hell, I’m not even sure he’s ever touched someone else’s sex organs, an unrealistic notion the film must hawk in order to make its fantasy premise work: Kat Ellis (Messing) is so pathetic she hires Nick “Yoda of Escorts” Mercer (Mulroney) to come to her sister’s wedding in London so she can make her ex-boyfriend jealous, along the way falling in love with the man and learning that “Cheating On Someone With Their Sister” ranks higher than “Fucking For Money” on her Moral Repugnancy Scale. No doubt convinced that she’s scoring one for the home team, director Clare Kilner confuses getting even with progress, treating her core demographic (you know, fans of Will & Grace and the fag hags who love them) to shots of Mulroney’s chest, abs, and buns (fresh out of the oven, to quote one character). It’s like a feature length version of that Diet Coke commercial that gave model Lucky Vanous his 15 minutes, which isn’t so bad in and of itself if you like the idea of Mulroney waving his cock two inches from your face while talking about your “problems,” except everything is tied together with clichés from the Brit-American Rom-Com Handbook (you know the drill: a friend who exists only to make funnies and a last-minute dash to an airport and/or news conference) and scored to within an inch of its neurotic life by an overzealous Brian Neely.
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