The Wedding Planner

Directed by Adam Shankman, The Wedding Planner follows Jennifer Lopez’s title figure, Mary Fiore, as she falls in love with the handsome man (Matthew McConaughey’s Steve Edison) who saved her life – with complications ensuing after it turns out that said man is actually engaged to Mary’s latest client (Bridgette Wilson-Sampras’ Fran). There’s little doubt, ultimately, that The Wedding Planner‘s failure is due in no small part to the ineffectiveness of its setup, as it becomes more and more difficult to work up any real interest in or enthusiasm for the potential pairing between Lopez and McConaughey’s respective characters – with Steve, though initially charming, eventually coming off as a slick sleazebag who happily (and enthusiastically) leads Mary on while continuing on with his relationship to Fran. It’s a thoroughly bizarre choice that negatively colors virtually everything that occurs within the picture’s sluggish 103 minutes, and it doesn’t help, either, that scripters Michael Ellis and Pamela Falk pad the proceedings out with a handful of equally unimpressive and pointless subplots – with this especially true of the ongoing emphasis on Mary’s potential pairing with Justin Chambers’ Massimo. By the time the eye-rolling race-to-a-loved-one sequence rolls around, The Wedding Planner has certainly cemented its place as a thoroughly misguided romcom that is, for the most part, neither romantic nor funny – which is a shame, ultimately, given that both Lopez and McConaughey are admittedly quite charming here.

** out of ****