The Wedding Planner
***
Cinema
Releases - April 6, 2001
Rated on a 4-star scale. Certificate PG. 103
minutes. Directed by Adam Shankman. Written by Pamela Falk. Starring Jennifer
Lopez, Matthew McConaughey, Justin Chambers, Bridgette
Wilson.
I should be reviewing "Yi Yi" this week, but all
I can say about it is that it cost me six quid. That's not really fair --
the movie won the best director award at last year's Cannes film festival,
and in America the National Society of Film Critics gave it their top prize.
I expect if I'd seen it I would have liked it, but I got the wrong screening
time and showed up half an hour late, leaving me to wander the streets of
Manchester in the rain and do a bit of shopping in Affleck's Palace, pondering
the money I'd wasted on the train fare. Hopefully I'll see "Yi Yi" when it
comes out on video, and if it's as good as they say, it'll get a mention
in my end-of-year review.
The only other nationwide release this week is
"The Wedding Planner", a surprisingly effective romantic comedy
starring Jennifer Lopez and Matthew McConaughey. Lopez stars as a brilliant
organiser of rich people's marriage ceremonies who can't get lucky in love
herself. There's a Meet Cute with McConaughey, a paediatrician who saves
her from getting run over; they chat, she starts to fall for him, and soon
she finds out he's the groom in one of her biggest accounts.
There's nothing particularly original about the
appeal of "The Wedding Planner", but its features are entertaining. Lopez
and McConaughey are both intelligent, witty personalities; so is Bridgette
Wilson, who plays the bride-to-be. The manner in which Lopez conducts her
wedding planning is amusing for its obsessive, militaristic attention to
detail. And the ending of the movie is impressive; "My Best Friend's Wedding"
managed to back itself into a corner where no possible ending would have
been satisfactory -- "The Wedding Planner" looks like it's gonna go down
that road and manages to pull itself out convincingly. This film is not going
to change the world, but it is a bit of fun.
COPYRIGHT©
2001 Ian Waldron-Mantgani
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