The number one movie in the US for two weeks, The Wedding Planner is further proof that actress/singer Jennifer Lopez is well on her way to achieving world domination, and even bad reviews like the ones this movie garnered in America can’t slow her down.
It’s not Lopez’s fault that this movie isn’t very good, as she does all the patented romantic comedy moves - laughing coquettishly, being slightly ditsy, crying beautifully - in such expert fashion, Meg Ryan would be proud. No, the problem isn’t J-Lo, nor is it co-star Matthew McConaughey. The problem is the whole premise of the film itself.
One assumes that all those involved lost their How To Make A Romantic Comedy handbook before shooting began, or they would have remembered that one of the essentials of the genre is that the audience must want the leading characters to end up living happily ever after. For that to happen in The Wedding Planner, wedding co-ordinator Mary must hurt the family friend who has been in love with her since they were kids, while the object of her affection, Steve, has to dump likeable fiancée Fran, whom he must have loved to have proposed in the first place.
The fact that Mary and Steve’s flirtation continues after she realises he’s engaged, and that she remains the wedding planner for his upcoming marriage while secretly wanting to be the woman in white herself, makes us feel even more sorry for the poor bride-to-be and even less accepting of any Mary/Steve romantic denouement. Throw in a completely ill-advised and awkward ‘comedy’ scene involving a statue’s broken-off penis and some superglue, and you begin to wonder whether Lopez and McConaughey signed on to a completely different - and better - movie, with the script for this one substituted in its place when no-one was looking.