Reviewed by Lamar Kukuk
1/20/08
Life is hard, with setbacks
and disappointments at every turn. Sometimes clinging to idealized
fantasies is the only way we can keep ourselves moving forward. I
guess that's part of the reason the movies are so dear to my heart, and
I'd imagine it's why so many women have a fanatical love of weddings.
Sure, everybody wants a lifetime of happiness, but you can really FOCUS
on a single day when Everything Is Perfect. Being a guy, I don't
really get it myself, but I get that other people get it and as such a
better movie can be made by selling me on the sincerity of one such person
than on the fantasy itself. 27 Dresses is such a movie, driven
by a wonderful Katherine Heigl star turn as a woman who's buried all her
own hopes and dreams under a lifetime of helping others with theirs.
The rough outline of Aline Brosh McKenna's screenplay is romantic comedy
rubbish that usually drives me mad, but almost any story can be pulled
off by great characters who stay true to themselves, and 27 Dresses
has those in spades.
Jane (Heigl) grew up looking
after her little sister Tess after the death of her Mother. She went
directly from that childhood to a job as the assistant of entrepreneur
George (Edward Burns), for whom she secretly pines while picking up his
dry cleaning and making sure he has a breakfast burrito in case he's hungry.
Jane hides her own romantic frustrations behind the happiness of others,
and has become a serial bridesmaid, providing full wedding planning services
for 27 friends to date. Best friend Casey (Judy Greer) finally persuades
her to tell George how she feels at the precise moment he meets the grown-up
Tess (Malin Akerman). It's love at first sight, especially after
Tess starts adopting every one of his character traits so he'll see how
perfect they are for each other. Practically overnight, they're engaged,
and of course Tess wants Jane to take care of everything. Meanwhile,
she has a chance meeting with Kevin (James Marden), who writes gushing
wedding announcements for the newspaper, but desperately wants a chance
to do feature stories. He sees that chance in Jane, and befriends
her while secretly working on an article on her life as a bridesmaid.
Of course, love begins to blossom, but how can Jane, already at the end
of her repressed rope, handle this public betrayal?
Were Katherine Heigl not
already a rising star, 27 Dresses would make her one. Her
sincerity, vulnerability and ability to make heartbreak funny reminded
me of great romcom star turns like Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman
and Sandra Bullock in While You Were Sleeping. Jane is repressing
so much that she seems ready to snap at any moment, except for the fact
that snapping would hurt someone's feelings, and watching her face swing
from misery to feigned happiness and everything in between is both a hoot
and wonderfully sympathetic. Marsden, who's been losing the girl
in movies for years, does a great job of creating not just a plot machine
love interest, but a character who's able to fall in love without having
to change every last thing about himself. It was love at first sight
when I first saw Judy Greer in What Women Want, and this is one
of her most delightful performances: Casey is a hilariously shameless
sidekick and watching her struggle not to scream at Jane to grow a backbone
every second they're with anyone else is really fun. Tess is the
heel, and I really did hate her: credit to Akerman for seeming to
have no redeeming characteristics, even if this isn't the kind of movie
to kick her when she's down. George is kinda a non-role: he's
really only there to give Jane and Tess someone to make goo-goo eyes at,
and Burns occupies it accordingly. Melora Hardin does a great job
as Kevin's editor, keeping the pressure on him so we don't feel so much
like he's scum.
I've railed against this
exact “I'm only romancing you so I can secretly write a magazine article”
plot in the past (most notably in How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days),
and 27 Dresses does run it close to the playbook. But it also
does its' best to breathe life into the cliches when possible: the
“trying on clothes” montage is a lot better when the clothes are hideous
bridesmaid dresses than when they're supposed to be Fabulous!, a
shared evening of drunken bar singing between Jane and Kevin works because
they're unable to remember the lyrics to Benny & The Jets (yes,
I too always thought Elton John was singing “electric boobs”), and the
evil magazine article, while underhanded, is chock full of things Jane
needs to hear unlike the usual hatchet job. It's still not a great
plot, but it's more than good enough to contain its' great characters.
Alas, I did still have to suppress a gag at one character's redemptive
decision to start over by designing handbags. I did mention I'm a
guy, right?
Choreographer Anne Fletcher's
only previous directorial outing was Step Up, which I once fell
asleep watching on a bus trip, but while awake I marveled at how animatronic
and unrealistic the characters seemed and chalked it up to a director with
no experience working with actors. Maybe I should have just blamed
the cast. Fletcher is blessed with nothing but pros here, but she
does an admirable job of keeping the movie's spirits up and never lets
a plot that could easily become maudlin lose its' spunk.
At the end of the day, romantic
comedies aren't about plot. It helps if they have one that doesn't
make you physically ill, but the genre is about putting together couples
you want to root for and characters you fall in love with yourself.
27 Dresses succeeds on both counts. Did it inflict me with
a Jane-like desperation for a walk down the aisle? Uh, no (Heigl,
after all, is off the market after getting hitched this past December).
But I can only imagine that the film will play even better for wedding
lovers. Everybody needs a fantasy, even if it involves designing
handbags... |
