THE WEDDING DATE Directed by Clare Kilner
Certificate 12A

Take a British director, give her a script that seems like a cross between Four Weddings and Pretty Woman and you have The Wedding Date in one. Director Clare Kilner tries her best to make this romantic comedy about an American woman coming to her half-sister’s British wedding into a rip-snorting female laugh fest.
Although Debra Messing (pictured) and Dermot Mulroney do stand out as stars amidst the low production standards, this film may have been a hit in America but it won’t sit as well with British audiences who may not be as enamoured of the social clichés.
Debra’s character Kat hires Mulroney’s character Nick from an escort agency because her ex-boyfriend (the one that broke her heart) will be at the British wedding.
From the moment the two board the plane to Blighty, the burgeoning romantic tension builds, then ebbs as it becomes clear that he is little more than a male escort who will do more for an extra charge and she is a woman who isn’t sure of her own heart. Will the ‘man for hire’ and the career girl fall in love? You’ll have to part with your cash to find out.
The story has two huge built-in credibility problems. First, that he has no real reason to fall in love with his client and secondly that he is a completely cold character, using charm as part of his professional weaponry. Charm isn’t, after all, a part of true love.
Still there are redeeming aspects of this strange hybrid. At last, Mulroney seems to have picked up more sex appeal than he was sporting in My Best Friend’s Wedding. Holland Taylor, who plays Kat’s mother, is brilliant in a supporting role. While the wardrobe, the lighting, some of the make-up and even the set design have much to be improved upon (there was, however, a fab shot of a thermostat – a rare find in most older British homes), this film has a smouldering spark inside it somewhere.