Okay. Swooning over.
Well, it was cute and Jack Davenport was the reason.
Debra Messing's character, Kat, was too shallow and needy for me to like her. First, she ships this male escort overseas to go to her sister's wedding simply to get her parents off her back and to make her ex jealous. Puh-leeze. If you can't defend yourself to your parents, then just don't talk to them and making ex-es jealous a) isn't worth the effort and b) indicates that you're probably not mature enough to be in a relationship anyway. Another problem was how she fit in her family. She had no accent whatsoever, but her family were all British. Huh? Was her dad American and married in to a British family, then took on the accent when he moved across the pond? Was Kat British and left her family to move to New York. It's never explained how the mechanics of that family worked and it's not really that important, but someone probably should have thought about it. Why is it a big deal, you ask? Okay. My folks are from the south. Born and raised, but haven't lived there since they were 25 or so. No matter how long they've been away, their Midwestern accents are replaced by southern drawls after being at my grandparents' place for a few hours. Not days...HOURS. So the question remains...where's Kat's accent?
The male escort, Nick, didn't work for me, either. He was played by Dermot Mulroney who, admittedly, is built, but he's not my type so I couldn't empathize with Kat wanting to be with him in any way, shape, or form. She found him because he wrote a magazine article about the escort business (under a pseudonym) and he's a very astute student of female behavior, so he must have a brain cell in his head, but why use that tool to be a prostitute?! Of course, the same question could be asked of the (few) porn stars with sky-high IQs. Go figure. Also, his attraction to Kat seemed to come out of nowhere. There were no longing looks, no stumbling over sentences, no internal conflict playing over his face, nothing! It seemed to me like he treated her like any other client. Calm, cool, professional, but then...BAM...fell for her. No. I don't think so. That snafu can probably be traced back to the actor, the director, or the writer but, whoever's to blame, the other two should have picked up on the problem and fixed it. He should fawn over her halfway through the movie, but he should at least seem semi-attracted to her. Like holding the romantic leads' silent eye contact in some scene for two extra seconds would make that big of a difference in the run-time of the movie (which was rather short. Something like 80 minutes).
Then, there's Jack. Jack plays Kat's sister's sweet, noble, sometimes clueless groom, Edward. He's (wisely) not played as an idiot. He's just a guy who's got a wedding and his blushing bride on his mind. However, he finds a little skeleton in his bride's closet: she slept with Kat's ex (his best man) when Kat and the ex were engaged. Most guys would flip out because the bride slept with the best man, even though it was a long time ago. Not Edward. He flipped because she slept with her sister's fiance and never told her. He was all bent out of shape because Kat's honor was tarnished by her sister (even thought it's never verbalized that way). That's AWESOME! They don't make men like that anymore. |
