Made of Honor (2008) Movie Rating and Review:
Rating:
Acting – 4/10
Direction – 4/10
Screenplay – 3/10
Music – 5/10
Technique – 6/10
Review:
Just enough of a sugar rush
The romantic comedy Made of Honor adds tart satirical flavours to a cotton-candy formula without sabotaging the sugar rush. Directed by Paul Weiland (City Slickers II), it begins on a nasty note when Tom (Patrick Dempsey), the putative Mr. Right in this taming-of-the-rogue fable, is introduced as a college boy wearing a hideous Bill Clinton mask and drunkenly bellowing for his Monica at a Halloween bacchanal.
The movie then skips ahead 10 years to discover this obnoxious Lothario living high in New York City off the millions he has made from his invention of the paper-cup sleeve. When the latest bimbo to grace his bed wonders the morning after their hookup if she will see him that evening, he snaps: “I don’t do back-to-backs. Two nights in a row; I don’t do that.” He also lives by the 24-hour rule: Never call a date until a full day has passed.
The apple doesn’t fall far from the tree, as they say. Tom’s wealthy father (Sydney Pollack) has been married and divorced so many times that he can’t recall whether his new wife is his sixth or his seventh. He is shown dressed up and heading toward the altar while frantically negotiating a pre-nup by cell phone with his bride-to-be, who circles the block in a limousine with her lawyer.
The only sign that Tom has a heart is his strictly platonic friendship with Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), a fresh-faced director of acquisitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art whom he has known since college. The two are such good pals that when Hannah tells him she has to go Scotland six weeks, he whines, “How can I live without you?”
Hannah returns from Scotland aglow over her engagement to Colin (Kevin McKidd), a rich, handsome aristocrat with a brogue who galloped to her rescue when he spied her stranded in her car at a cattle crossing. Suddenly Tom realizes Hannah is the love of his life. But what can he do? He decides he should keep his mouth shut and strategise.
Dempsey, who at 42 is too old for his role, does his best to infuse Tom with some boyish charm. Monaghan’s aura of fundamental niceness is the main reason that Made of Honor retains enough sweetness to satisfy the cotton-candy addicts. For true believers in fairy tales, no romantic fantasy is too extravagant if she heroine is a sweetheart. The rest of us can sit there and roll our eyes.
