27 Dresses

By Linda Winsh-Bolard

Classical romantic comedy, to a great degree predictable, but mostly just a nice romantic fluff.

Jane (Katherine Heigl) is the proverbial bridesmaid. Since she was a nice little girl, who helped a bride with her dress; she was always in love with weddings.

Thankfully not her weddings, she was a bridesmaid and chief helper-planner at some 27 weddings since.

Jane simply loves the moment when it happens.

She is also having a long lasting crush at her boss George (Edward Burns). Just as she is working up her nerve to tell him how she adores him, her younger, brighter, blonder sister Tess (Malin Akerman) comes into the picture and carries him away.

Simultaneously, cynical reporter Kevin (James Marsden), who writes a Wedding column in the local paper extolling the greatness of marriages, and desires to do better things, tries to sell his editor some new ideas. To get his break, he misuses Jane, her 27 bridesmaid dresses and the whole “money will buy you glamor and glamor is happiness” spiel that is spouted by the wedding industry for big bucks.

Kevin gets his break and Janet gets her pictures, many of them in rather unflattering bridesmaid dresses, into the Sunday paper. Tess accepts offer of marriage from George and, used to have her own way, cuts her own mother’s wedding dress to suit her. Suddenly, it is all too much for Jane and when Tess refuses to come clean with George, Jane produces a little slide show that ends the wedding plans.

That of course is not the end of the movie, but then you can guess where it goes from here.

There are some nice scenes and gimmicks among the usual. The whole opening of the film, when Jane dashes between weddings, dresses and shoes, is amusing and relatively new; the idea of the 27 brides, who at the end, are there for Jane, is not bad. It is, as far as I know, a realistic look at bridesmaid dresses (not that I attend many weddings, but there is an arboretum close by where I get to see as many as 4 different outfits on a Summer weekend. They are all equally awful) as is the presentation of some odd marriage wows people take to make the day memorable. The "big kiss" is nice turn of events, just on the brink of irony but still within nice.There is also Judy Greer, the sharp tongued friend, with some of the best lines in the film.

There is plenty of what you’d expect, the worst is a sing-a-long scene that now seems to be part of all romantic love movies. Who is responsible for this atrocity? Spare me, I really do not want to see another one.

Jane is an average nice girl, who could be a stunner but she is such a nice girl, that it is not possible-the only somewhat poignant point the film makes, from a safe distance, is that Jane was made "nice" by her life circumstances just as Tess was made selfish by her opportunities. Miss Ackerman is truly talented, she performs her bitchi roles faultlessly and is perfectly capable to make the transition to a nicer person within the same role believable. I expect, she will get better parts when she is older.

The men are flat, because they are written flat. James Marsden’s Kevin has dazzling set of white teeth, that wears out rather soon, and self-absorbing charm that he uses at all times. When he is supposed to be devastated, it just does not work. Edward Burns portrays the good man George, who made great career from safe environment, is a Big Brother to a young boy, treats his employees well, never thinks that Jane might be smitten by him and falls for the wrong girl because he does not expect her to lie. Oh, well it is not his fault.

It keeps its pacing, the costumes are pretty, and if it doesn’t get up to laughs it still might make you smile.

A Fox 2000 Pictures and Spyglass Entertainment presentation of a Birnbaum/Barber production

Director: Anne Fletcher
Screenwriter: Aline Brosh McKenna
Producers: Roger Birnbaum, Gary Barber, Jonathan Glickman
Executive producers: Bobby Newmyer, Becki Cross Trujillo, Michael Mayer, Erin Stam
Director of photography: Peter James
Production designer: Shepherd Frankel
Camera: Peter James
Music: Randy Edelman
Costume designer: Catherine Marie Thomas
Editor: Priscilla Nedd Friendly

Cast:
Jane: Katherine Heigl
Kevin: James Marsden
Tess: Malin Akerman
Casey: Judy Greer
George: Edward Burns
Hal: Brian Kerwin

MPAA rating PG-13, running time 107 minutes.