Whether you're planning a wedding or not (The Wedding Planner (DVD))

Member Name: waterlilly

Product:	The Wedding Planner (DVD)
Date:	20/07/09 (61 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Fun romantic comedy with some beautiful scenes

Disadvantages: It's a romantic comedy, not going to change your life

In the continuing theme of girly films (I have been left on my own A LOT lately between the end of the school year for my teacher husband and stag dos) I recently stumbled upon "The Wedding Planner". Of course by stumbled upon, I mean, pulled out the dvd that I've owned for years and years. Sigh. I'm realising that, when shared with the reviewing world, my dvd collection is a little sad!! In my defence I had spent 4 ½ hours showing my newly engaged friend around all of the bridal shops and wedding goodies that Norwich has to offer that day! So it fit with the theme and I like it when my days have a theme.


THE PREMISE

"The Wedding Planner" was Adam Shankman's directorial debut (see my review on "Bedtime Stories" for why I love Shankman, but not that film) and was his take on a modern day fairy tale. Mary Fiore (Jennifer Lopez) is one of San Francisco's best wedding planners. Every detail of her life is perfectly organised so that she doesn't have a free moment to notice that she actually has no life. Her major goal is to land the Donnolly wedding, the biggest social event of the summer, in order to become a partner at the wedding planning agency to which she has dedicated her life.

Meanwhile Mary's friends and family are keen to see her happily settled with someone. When Mary is rescued from a runaway rubbish bin by Dr. Steve Edison (Matthew McConaughey) her friend and assistant, Penny (Judy Greer), shoves her into an impromptu date. Her Italian father goes a rather large step further and brings over a family friend from Italy, Massimo (Justin Chambers), to marry her. The charming doctor seems a much better option except for one tiny detail- he's the groom in the Donnolly wedding. How can Mary maintain order in her work life when her personal life is suddenly so out of wack?

SO SHOULD I SEE IT?

A few of you men may remember that I recently reviewed "Taken", a film with a lot of shooting and chasing and even people getting electrocuted. I promise to find another one of those (I just briefly considered watching one of my husband's war films and then caught myself) and review it sometime soon. For now, I apologise yet again and point out that, if you did manage to sit through it without making horrible sarcastic comments it would probably win you real brownie points. Seriously men, we don't ask that you enjoy such things, just that you don't ruin it for us. So anyway, yeah, that's about the only reason for watching for you guys yet again.

Alright, so the film is not ground breaking as far as plot. It's a fairly straight forward, boy meets girl, major reason why boy can't be with girl, boy and girl bicker a lot.... You know how that works out. But it has a comfortable feel to it. There is very little that is unexpected, but the film manages to tell its story at a fairly good pace and manages the emotions well without getting ridiculously sentimental.

Visually the film is surprisingly beautiful and it is in this area that Shankman's dance and choreography background really becomes a strength. The various weddings that Mary attends as planner over the course of the film are romantic visions (and the sort of thing that made my father very very concerned when I started planning my own wedding as the flowers for just one of those film weddings would have been several times my entire wedding budget). But all of these are put to shame by the romantic, fairy tale date to see a classic film in the park. Shankman put together a beautiful moment and got to work in dancing couples! He works dance into some other sections of the film as well which seems to be playing to his strengths.

Jennifer Lopez really should never be listed in acting award nominees but she, and her famous backside, look fabulous in this film. Considering how sexy she can be when she wants to she obviously threw herself into the role and pulls off the uptight control freak very well. She and McConaughey have great chemistry together. This film reminds me of a time when McConaughey was comfortable with the romantic comedy genre before such horrors as "Failure to Launch" and "Fools Gold" and actually wore clothes (and wore them well!). He's sweet and charismatic and has a good sense of comedic timing. It's a little sad what's happened to him since!

The supporting cast has some really fun characters who have a tendency to steal scenes. Bridgette Wilson strikes a great balance between the strong, domineering business woman and the sensitive, vulnerable bride to be, as Steve's fiancé, Fran Donnolly. She and McConaughey also have great chemistry. Justin Chambers is now famous as one of the hot doctors of Grey's Anatomy which makes his role as the bumbling, rustic Massimo rather hilarious to watch now. Watching him on the doctor show you'd never realise that he had this role in him so Chambers' acting abilities have actually risen in my estimation! The vetran actors should not be overlooked of course. Charles Kimbrough and Joanna Gleason steal all of their scenes as the nouveau riche, drunken Donnollys. Meanwhile, Alex Rocco as Mary's over protective father and Lou Myers as his bestfriend provide a nice balance to all of the comedy.

THE EXTRAS

As expected the bonus materials include director's commentary of the film as well as deleted scenes. It also has a short but somewhat interesting little piece on The Dancer and The Cowboy talking about how out of place McConaughey was with the dance scenes while Lopez really is terrified on a horse (you have to watch the film to see why this is important but it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that at some point they dance and ride horses, but not simultaneously).

On a whole "The Wedding Planner" falls very comfortably into the romantic comedy genre and gives us what we have come to expect from such. It is not the best of the genre but it certainly is not the worst! At 103 min it's also fairly easy to sit through even if you're not a huge fan.

Summary: The wedding planner didn't plan to fall in love.