The Wedding Date

Starring: Debra Messing, Dermot Mulroney, Jack Davenport and Jeremy Sheffield
Directed by: Clare Kilner

Bluntly speaking? The Wedding Date is a manfest extravaganza! And for that I salute it.

Basically WD is an unabashedly chick-flick-y yarn in that genre of "Oh, those wacky Brits" offerings, Four Weddings and a Funeral and Bridget Jones' Diary - but with an emphasis on the men; here an extra helping of grade A mansteak is served up with a side of dueling accents whipped up within a helluva fantastical fable of the highest degree.

Story goes… Kat Ellis (Debra Messing) has a wedding to go to. Her little sister is getting married. Kat's ex-fiancé Jeffrey (Jeremy Sheffield) is the groom's best friend, and therefore the best man.

Dread.

Kat, who is still upset from their apparent abrupt break-up, wants a nice - jealousy inducing - beau upon her arm to flash about at the nuptial affair. But, she's single with a capital S. And as the date of doom looms ever closer, she panics and hires a male escort. An escort who is apparently the king of escorts named Nick (Dermot Mulroney).

The two put on a grand show of it and (naturally) start to slip from an employee - underling relationship to an employer - under him relationship.

Gotta love a female fantasy flick. Nick - the male prostitute - doesn't look like an emaciated-Chihuahua-eyed-street-walkin'-green-bag-sportin' sort, he doesn't belch, he's witty, he says things like, "I'd miss you even if we'd never met," and knows how to dance like a wanna-be Astaire! This rent-a-guy is a Hotty McHottster hot - like bubbling fondue with scotch bonnet pepper brandy infused hot. And, since we're creating fantasy here, Mr. " Winky for the Weekend," is also a bit of an armchair philosopher. He'll bone up your Freud & Jung while on the clock - for free.

It's all terribly far-fetched and scrumptiously fantastical! The impeccably handsome cast, in what can only be called a "Festival of Manly Visual Glee," is lead by Dermot Mulroney - a man who would be best served lightly toasted and schmeared with a cinnamon maple mélange of warmed butter. You also get Jack "Allo Allo" Davenport (sigh). And even the mandatory cad (Jeremy Sheffield) is blatantly edible. Bravo.

Dermot Mulroney is wonderful - he's been in a bazillion indie films (heck he's even Mr. Catherine Keener for crimeny) - but a haute Hollywood budget and formfitting Armani does this lad well.

Oh, the star? Debra Messing? Deb's adorable as the self deprecating Kat. They keep her real and show film may just love her comic timing and grace, as much as Will.

Wedding Date was written by a woman (Dana Fox), and directed by a woman (Clare Kilner), and everything from the dream casting (sans say Jeremy Northam and Clive Owen of course...), to its real-gurl dialog and knowing angles upon the manly cast, shines for it. Let's put it this way - it mentally stops short of queing porn music while putting its exceptional Y chromosome specimens in some sort of wet tee-shirt contest for our viewing pleasure. Therefore one begs its audiences, "Is the hypocritical world ready for a role reversal on Pretty Woman?" (- a film I personally still find a repugnant piece of trash...exposing myself, therefore, as a raging hypocrite - no?) Who cares. Look at the man-cast!

Man-loving sorts unite and frolic forth to the mega-plex - you will learn nothing, retain nothing, and it aint award material. But a fable like this has never been sweeter upon the eyes. Enjoy.