The Wedding Planner

A very pretty, but lonely, wedding planner unknowingly falls for a guy whose wedding she is planning. As the wedding day approaches, she and the groom-to-be spend more and more time together, and then…well, I think we could pretty much all guess the rest, eh?

Whose opinion do you think is more important for this type of movie? Me or my girlfriend’s (aka Mrs. JoBlo)? Well, as it turns out, she and I had diametrically opposed opinions about this movie, so let’s try this experiment and play the ol’ “he said, she said” game:

HE SAID:

Jennifer Lopez looked really beautiful in this movie. Matthew McConaughey also looked mighty handsome. But put all that beauty aside and whadda you got? Jack all! In fact, here’s yet another example of a movie that blows away its entire story in one 30-second trailer. Trust me…if you’ve seen the trailer, you’ve seen the movie, folks! Sure, there are a couple of “Jennifer acting cute” moments and the décor nice to look at, but the film as a whole is just too hollow, predictable, fluffy and tired. In fact, I’m personally starting to get really tired of watching these 1-2-3 romantic comedies. And oh yeah, I think I forgot to mention corny. I don’t know, maybe I just don’t “get” this kind of movie since many people in our audience seemed to be enjoying themselves. But try as I might, I just could not see past this film’s obvious story line, I’m talking from scene one to scene last, lack of chemistry between the leads, crappy dialogue and phony baloney “family” moments. Blech! I just didn’t buy any of it!

The whole thing just smelled like a “vehicle” for a couple of movie stars looking for a “romantic comedy” project. Even the so-called “comic relief” Italian boyfriend in this movie did nothing but annoy me with his accent. And was Alex Rocco really trying to sound Italian, too? Boy-oh-boy. But I could sometimes even forgive predictability when the film as a whole is able to entertain, or at least make me laugh, but even there, this film came up very, very short. It was just so damn ho-hum! I mean, did you read the plot breakdown up there? Lopez and McConaughey basically just walk around trying to find stuff for his wedding the whole time…walk here, walk there, talk about this inconsequential something, talk about that inconsequential something. And why was it that this sexy, gorgeous, sensitive, loving, smart businesswoman didn’t have a boyfriend in the first place, you may ask? God knows. I guess it made sense for the plot…but sadly, the plot doesn’t carry much weight in the real world. Ugh. See this movie if you liked any of the other romantic comedies that I gave low scores to below. That would mean that we don’t see eye to eye on these types of movies and that this one might appeal to you. And the missus’ point of view…?

SHE SAID:

Well, she saw it all under a different light. She loved the whole look of this movie, the flowers, the dresses, the clothes, the locales…all that crap…uhhhm ,I mean, stuff! (Note to self: She might be trying to tell you something, you commitment phobic dunce!). Anyway, she also bought into the whole “will McConaughey and Lopez” end up together “mystery” (granted, she hadn’t seen the trailer) and thought that all of the characters were believable and well-developed enough to care about (yup, she shed tears, folks!). She also loved all of the romance sprinkled throughout the film (the tango scene in particular) and really enjoyed the performance put forth by the over-the-top Italian guy with the accent (natch!). Anyhoo, the one thing that we did agree on was that the film didn’t necessarily have many humorous moments. Overall, not an original piece of work, but apparently fun to watch (according to her). She scored it a 7/10.

(c) 2021 Berge Garabedian