Hollywood’s latest wedding-themed romantic comedy opens with Jane (Katherine Heigl) dashing between multiple ceremonies in one day, changing into different bridesmaid’s outfits in a New York cab (she’s lucky no one opted for a destination wedding). It’s probably no coincidence that this recalls the mad dash at the beginning of ‘Four Weddings…’. Like Hugh Grant’s Charles, Jane seems destined to attend all her friends’ weddings without ever getting hitched herself. A crush on her boss George (Edward Burns) could be the problem – especially as he’s more keen on her sister (Malin Akerman).
And so downtrodden Jane is doomed to play bridesmaid at the wedding of the man she loves. Or thinks she does – the love triangle doesn’t end there. Enter James Marsden as journalist Kevin, who writes a newspaper wedding column and is desperate for a juicy story about, say, a girl who’s been a bridesmaid 27 times. As Kevin befriends Jane and takes advantage of her distress about George, his duplicitousness is less than beguiling, and yet he’s still clearly in the running for the Mr Right contest.
It’s no compelling love story – Jane seems stuck between a rock and a hard place. But the film hops along merrily enough thanks to an engaging turn from Heigl, who’s nailed the unusually-pretty-girl-next-door act while embracing physical and risqué comedy (Cameron Diaz comparisons abound). Judy Greer provides amusing support as the man-eating sibling. But while the humour’s irreverent and likeable, this is no match for Heigl’s last comedy, ‘Knocked Up’. It’s official: a pregnancy is funnier than a wedding these days – on the big screen anyway.