Made of Honor
Posted on September 16, 2008 at 8:00 am
“Made of Honor” has gloss and bounce and some of the core elements of a mainstream chick flick/date movie. Sexiest Man Alive runner-up in lead role? Yep, Dr. McDreamy himself. I’ve been a Patrick Dempsey fan since he did the African anteater dance in Can’t Buy Me Love
Ten years after college, Tom still sleeps with as many beautiful women as possible, not-so-gently informing each of them that he has “rules” — no one gets him two nights in a row, no one gets to visit his apartment, no one meets his family, etc. etc. The one constant in his life is his weekly time with college pal Hannah (Michelle Monaghan of “Gone Baby Gone”), his best friend. When she returns from a six-week business trip to Scotland engaged to a bonny broth of a Mr. Right (think the Laird of Right), Tom suddenly realizes that it is Hannah he truly loves. She wants him to be her Maid of Honor and he accepts because he thinks it will help him stop the wedding and prove to Hannah that he’s the one.
Despite Dempsey’s charm and charisma, the character he plays is hard to root for, more a male fantasy than a female one. The screenwriters and director seem mystified by women and sometimes even downright misogynistic, never a good thing in a chick flick. Women all take one look at tom and sigh, endlessly willing to do anything from write their phone numbers on Starbucks coffee cups to jump into (or back into) bed with him, one even yelling “Service me!” Three different times, the movie makes fun of an elderly lady who mistakes a sex toy (glow in the dark!) for a necklace. Not funny even once. Tom is immature and self-centered. He has no job, no interest in anything but hanging out with his basketball-playing buddies, having sex with many different girls, and his weekly date with Hannah, which is primarily about making him feel good. Even when she gets engaged, it never occurs to him to think about what would make her happy. The movie avoids the usual formula of making the designated loser in the marriage sweepstakes obviously wrong for Hannah but forgets to substitute some other reason to root for Tom. As happens too often these days, the movie relies on vulgarity instead of wit, insults instead of banter, and recycled ideas instead of anything fresh. It is so sloppy it does not know the difference between a blog and a post or between a museum conservator and a curator and has homophobic (literally) locker-room humor that would be considered childish by 14-year-olds. When the highlights of the movie are seeing Dempsey juggle china and a wedding video featuring Elizabeth Hasselbeck, you know the script is a couple of bridesmaids short of a wedding party.
A delicious retro romp about a failed nanny who finds her true calling when she transforms the life of a flighty singer, this film is designed around two fabulously entertaining stars, Frances McDormand and Amy Adams.
Joy is humiliatingly dumped by her fiancee (SNL’s Jason Sudeikis) in front of all of their friends. Jack is fired by his father (Treat Williams) for not taking the job seriously. They meet when they both take off for Vegas to get away from their disasters. So, of course, they create an even bigger one. They get completely drunk and wake up the next morning married. They quickly agree to an annulment until they win a $3 million jackpot. A judge (Dennis Miller) orders them to live together (“I sentence you to six months hard marriage”) to try to make the marriage work before he will decide how to allocate the money. And so Joy and Jack scheme to get each other to give up, then to give cause for divorce by cheating. And then, just as they begin to appreciate each other, there is time for one more setback.
It may be quaint and stylized but it perfectly suits the storyline, especially the numbers we see Wall∙E watch, with the characters singing about taking chances, trying out new experiences, and falling in love.”Hello Dolly!” was not successful on its original release. It was the victim of poor timing. First, though it was filmed earlier, the release was delayed because by contract it could not be in theaters as long as the play was running on Broadway. Second, it was released in 1969, when audiences were caught up in the political and cultural turmoil of the 60’s, and it felt too big (it is over two hours long) and out of touch. There was also some hostility to the casting of the 20-something Barbra Striesand in the title role, a character who is supposed to be middle-aged, replacing the star of the play, Carol Channing. But today it is easy to be as charmed as Wall∙E is by this story of four different couples taking a chance on love and the character who encourages them all and then has to learn a few lessons herself. Here are his favorite numbers: