TV Dinners and Alphebetised Credit Cards: The Life of The Wedding Planner (The Wedding Planner (DVD))

Member Name: Epiphany

Product:	The Wedding Planner (DVD)
Date:	30/10/05 (159 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Romantic, Non-offensive, some good performances

Disadvantages: A little corny, a little predictable, not good if you're lonely

The Wedding Planner is essentially a love story. Jennifer Lopez plays the character of Mary Fiore, The Wedding Planner. Mary doesn’t long for a loving husband and the wedding of her dreams, she just organises other peoples for them, something she does this to perfection.

“There’s the wedding Planner. She must lead such a romantic life!”

The life of Mary Fiore is not romantic. Her life is filled by work, TV dinners and scrabble club practice with her father and the other folks at the old peoples home. Her life is as regimented as the weddings she officiates (can I say that in this context?) and everything is in perfect order. Her whole life is about control, until she meets Steve Edison who is played by Matthew McConaughey.

“Did you ever like somebody and the timing was off?”

When Mary meets Steve, everything changes. It’s love at first sight, or even if it’s not quite love, there is a definite spark between the pair. However, Steve Edison is about to marry Fran Donnelly who is played by Bridgette Wilson-Sampras (yes, she’s Pete Sampras’ wife). Of course, by twisted fate Mary is to plan their wedding.

Meanwhile Mary’s dad, Salvatore Fiore, played by Alex Rocco is unhappy about his daughter’s dormant love life and decides to set her up with Massimo who is played by Justin Chambers.

What follows is a will-they-won’t-they story with some humorous twists, some predictable turns and some very touching and some very corny lines along the way. The story touches on arranged marriages (where the love grows), the more western traditional courting relationships of today, and the phenomenon (?) of love at first sight. There is unrequited love, amicable separation and separation through bereavement.

The cast portray their characters well. I really felt for Mary in places, and Massimo contributed some very touching performances. For me, the fact that I felt for the characters indicates their performances were believable and so I judge the parts to be well acted.

The fake Italian accents of Massimo and to a lesser extent Salvatore were hopeless and distracting. I am not sure that the characters were meant to be presented as intellectually challenged, and yet that is how they came across. They could have tried to make more of an effort to sound more authentic.

I found it very easy to dislike Matthew McConaughey’s character. I don’t really like him as an actor, and of all the performances, I believe his was one of the weakest of the main characters. He seemed fairly wooden and unreal, although in places he also delivered touching monologues. His southern-drawling accent is also not high on my list of positives about this film.

The final notable character is that of Penny, played by Judy Greer. Penny is Mary’s bubbly blonde assistant and plays the supporting role well.

The romantic soundtrack is appropriate at all times, and there are some nice songs to support the on-screen action. The closing titles play out to JLo’s “Love Don’t Cost a Thing”

DVD extras include:

- Deleted Scenes (and to be quite frank, you can see why they were deleted. They don’t add anything to the story and serve to patronise the viewer more than anything by explicitly spelling out the story and making the overall outcome more predictable than it might otherwise be.)

- “The Dancer and The Cowboy” (the making of the dance scene with JLo and Matthew and contrasting that with them both on horseback. JLo being a dancer had the upperhand in the former scene, whereas Matthew's country roots gave him the upperhand in the latter one. Very short, pretty dull and generally pointless.)

- Original Theatrical Trailer (not really sure why DVD makers include these... are you meant to watch the trailer before you go into the movie? Why would you want to see it after?)


The extras are a bit rubbish, so my recommendation would be not to buy/rent this movie just to check out the extras. The movie is much better! Of course, there is also the usual directors commentary we come to expect from DVD movies, and various audio options for those who are hard of hearing etc.

Overall, this is a very watchable film. More of a chick flick than anything, suitable for the whole family (rated PG it doesn’t feature any bad language, sex, violence or nudity). It’s good, it’s nice, it’s pleasant but it’s far from being earth shatteringly good.

The Wedding Planner is currently available from Play.com for £6.99, or Amazon Marketplace from £4.73. It is of course available from other outlets that sell DVDs!

Summary: A feel good film, but not one for the lonely