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Hello Cinephiles,

Today we’re talking about the 2001 movie The Wedding Planner.

Story

I’m not sure what was going on in the early 2000’s that this was considered a romantic comedy. There was very little comedy and very little romance. The most jaded love story I’ve ever seen. It’s interesting that it has a similar love story to Enchanted but a completely different feel.

It’s the early 2000s but the amount of sexism, ableism, and racism is disturbing.

Score: 0

Characters

Jennifer Lopez manages to make a narcissistic, vapid, and whiny character be sympathetic. Beyond that I disliked almost everyone in this movie. I hated that she suddenly stopped caring about her career the minute a pretty boy blinked at her, I cringed at the love story, I yelled at the screen about how disrespectful her father was, and overall wished I could slap some sense into everyone.

Also can we talk about the inherent racism of making Lopez an Italian? I’m all for casting anyone in any role but it would have taken 2 lines to make her mixed race Italian-Latina.

Score: 0

Dialogue

The movie is pretty standard dialogue for it’s time and avoids a lot of slang by being mostly about rich people. There are a few lines by McConaughey that should be uncomfortable but he manages to make almost sweet. This is massive feat considering the dialogue is terrible.

Score: 0

Visuals and Music

The movie was well shot. It had solid angles and the locations are beautiful. They didn’t try to use any weird colour filters and let the beauty of the locations and the clothing shine through. I feel like they could have increased the saturation a little.

The music was well done, adding emotion and guidance where the movie lacked any idea whether you should be cooing or screaming in horror.

Score: 1

Fun

I like my romantic comedies with more comedy and more sweetness. I don’t like to cringe and I really don’t like it when a powerful career woman is made out to only be the product of a loveless life.

Score: 0

Overall

This type of movie is the reason rom-coms started to die out. It’s jaded, creepy, and overall offensive. The main actors are fantastic at what they do and manage to make the characters almost likeable but the writing gets in the way.

This is the kind of movie that would be fun to watch without dialogue where you make up your own story.

Final score: 1 star out of 5