MovieBabe Blog

Under discussion:

The Wedding Planner  (2001)

The only part of The Wedding Planner that's can't-miss is Jennifer Lopez's ass. The rest of the film is, well, less significant -- and not nearly as easy to watch.

The Wedding Planner posits J. Lo as Mary, an anal-retentive manager of marriages who's on the fast track to partnership in her firm, but each night comes home to an empty apartment and emptier personal life. One felicitous afternoon, Mary gets her heel stuck in a manhole cover while crossing the street, just as a mammoth dumpster is knocked free by an errant cab and starts heading her way. Cue rescue by aw-shucks Southern gentleman: Pediatrician Dr. Steve (Matthew McConaughey) shoves Mary aside in the hick -- er, nick -- of time, and their eyes meet and the angels sing. They go on a dream date, complete with outdoor dancing, old romantic movie, and sudden warm-weather downpour; the next day at work, poor, lonely Mary can't stop smiling (although we don't see them trade numbers, and he later admits that he figured he'd never see her again -- quelle romance!).

The plot twist, which is given away in the trailer, is that Steve is better known as Eddie, fiancé of high-society Fran (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras), who's just hired Mary as the planner of her megabucks wedding. Now that Steve -- Eddie is a shortened version of his last name, favored by Fran -- is pretty much stuck with seeing Mary on a regular basis, he needs to turn his attraction to her into cool indifference (which, for the gape-mouthed McConaughey, isn't a stretch) with a good dose of I-never-really-wanted-you-anyway bitterness thrown in. In the meantime, Mary's father has arranged for her to wed a Greek stud whom she's known since she was a child, who manages to show up wherever Mary is to tell her in broken English how much he loves her.

By the end of the film, Mary and Steve dance a few more times, there's another oh-my-gosh! rescue, and we find out the real reason Mary has been shunning love for so long: "He said they were just friends!" Although Mary has one surprising moment of feminist strength, her I'm-single-and-I'm-OK outlook is thrown out the window when she makes the most completely pathetic decision I've ever seen in a romantic comedy. If you prefer seeing Lopez in more respectable situations, skip The Wedding Planner and stick to the tabloids.

Under discussion:

The Family Man  (2000)

You're either a house-in-the-suburbs kind of person or you're not (though I have witnessed -- God help me -- the tragic conversion of die-hard city slickers into Wal-Mart-loving moms and pops once some alleged biological clock starts ticking). The Family Man tries hard to paint a pretty picture of poor-but-proud family life -- the story takes place during the holidays, when even the staunchest advocates of singlehood get a little blue -- but chances are that whatever your current status, this film won't make you long for the life you don't have.

Nic Cage is Jack, a successful, well-dressed businessman with a really cool Manhattan apartment and the freedom to pick up beautiful blondes on Christmas Eve. A would-be convenience-store robber -- an angel? the devil? where did this guy come from, anyway? -- intervenes, and Jack wakes up the next morning with his old college girlfriend lying on his stomach and two runny-nosed kids jumping on the bed. For reasons left unexplained, Jack has been thrust into this world, with no knowledge of where he works, where his kids go to school, or even what kind of car he drives, for an indeterminate amount of time. After realizing that he can't go back to his old life just yet, Jack fumbles through his new daily routine -- complete with minivan and blue-collar job -- convincingly enough to not raise the suspicions of his wife, Kate (Téa Leoni).

(Not much seems to rattle her, in fact, not even Jack screaming vitriol such as "How could you let me give up on my dreams like this?" in the middle of a department store. Fun fact: Only one side of this husband-wife duo is realistically drawn. Guess which?)

His daughter knows that something's up, however, and once they get through an awkward "You're-not-my-real-daddy" conversation (she thinks he's an alien and seems OK with that), she helps him out -- in a charming widdle-goil, never-corrected-in-her-life voice -- with information such as how to change a diaper and where her little brother goes to day care. But just as Jack learns to love his new life of middle-class drudgery (of course), he's yanked back to the old fabulous one, though now aching for the dream girl he left behind 13 years ago. He finds her and, well, though the ending is ambiguous, it seems that, as in all fairy tales, love will conquer all.

Under discussion:

Miss Congeniality  (2000)

The theme of Miss Congeniality is familiar: Within every tomboy lies a woman of beauty and grace, even if she's spent the better part of 30-odd years beating up boys, wearing clunky man shoes, and swilling beer from the bottle. From the time she started kickin' ass on the playground as a little miss, Gracie Hart (Sandra Bullock) didn't care that she was a poor excuse for a female. She liked her steak with ketchup, dammit, and was quite unconcerned with the world of big hair and dieting until her masculine job -- as an FBI agent -- thrust her into a feminine world: as a contestant in the Miss United States pageant, the presumed next target of a terrorist group.

Because Hart is the only female agent who's not old, pregnant, or ghastly, it's up to image consultant Vic (Michael Caine) to wax and buff her to a fine finish for her undercover gig. Although his initial diagnosis is that Gracie can't be helped ("I haven't seen a walk like that since Jurassic Park"), Vic accepts the challenge and, of course, is triumphant. He's so successful, in fact, that not only does she pass as a contestant, but her partner (Benjamin Bratt) falls in love with her and she gets all teary-eyed talking about how she really does want world peace. (You see, makeup and a little kissin' are all an otherwise happy tough gal needs to make her feel complete!)

Bullock, who also produced the flick, does well with the physical comedy -- I haven't been so amused by a pratfall since the days of Cosmo Kramer -- and her eye-rolling, I-can't-believe-we're-the-same-species sarcasm while among the cheery pageant contestants is predictable but entertaining. Although the film would have benefited from a more likely finish -- shouldn't Gracie have been relieved to take off those damn heels? -- instead of its I'm-a-real-live-girl! ending, Miss Congeniality is fluffy fun.