Tuesday, January 22, 2008

27 Dresses -- Movie Review

Today's blog entry will be in the form of a movie review. I'm going to add a page of movie, product, and restaurant reviews to my 1895house website, but it's still under construction, so I'll do this one here.

1st off, I give this movie 4 out of 5 stars. Or maybe 7 out of 10. It was cute. And better than I thought it would be, honestly. The plot is not terribly original, it's true. It's sort of like "How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days" meets "In Her Shoes." But you like this movie anyway because, let's face it, not that many romantic comedies have completely original plots these days. But there is more than the plot to like about this movie. Let me give you a run-down of the story line: The heroine is a cute, sweet, fun girl who loves to be a bridesmaid (and does a good job of it) for all her friends. She works for a young, handsome boss who she has a secret crush on. Enter the hot, slutty younger sister. Of course, the boss falls for the sister (who is also pretending to be this granola, tree-hugger she totally isn't). Meanwhile, a cynical young (handsome) writer who covers Weddings for the New York Review decides to do a story on the heroine after catching her being a bridesmaid at two weddings on the same night. Eventually the boss proposes to the hot little sister, the writer gets hired to cover the wedding, the heroine slowly lets the writer into her life, and although he is falling for her, he still writes the story about her. And just as the heroine and writer are really hitting it off, the story of the forever bridesmaid hits the front page of the section. I won't ruin the ending for you just in case you haven't guessed it yet. But I can at least say that there are a few twists and turns in the plot that are just enough to keep it from getting predictable, So what makes this movie worthy of 4 out of 5 (or 7 out of 10) stars? 1) Great acting. The lead characters are all really good, especially Katherine Heigl. The slutty little sister played by Malin Akerman has some annoying mannerisms like tilting her head and squinting her eyes a lot, but she plays a good crush-stealing sister. 2) the dialogue is actually fairly original. One of my biggest pet peeves in movies is where the characters say things no one ever says or where you know the next line that's coming during every conversation. But this screen-play actually managed to avoid most of that trite dialogue. 3) the main character is pretty endearing. I can relate to her a lot. I bet she's a ESFJ too. 4) this is a total chick thing to say, but I really like the clothes in this movie! That is rarely a factor I consider, but they struck me as being really cute. So that boosts the movie up about 1/4 star.

To sum up: Good acting, cute, funny, feel-good, pretty clean, lots of good looking people, not so original plot, but you get over it because everything else about the movie is so likeable. And you could take your mom to see it. But don't try to take your husband. Oh sure, he would love it just like you did, but he would whine like a little baby about going, just to preserve his sense of manliness. Better wait until it comes out on video to watch it with him. Then he can always claim that he didn't have a choice because it's what you were watching. And be sure to have a few Kleenex on hand for him. I guarantee he'll use them.

2 comments:

Chelsea said...

I'm glad to hear you liked it, I've been wanting to see this. When it comes out on DVD I'll have to trap Eric at home and make him watch it with me. ;)

alex dumas said...

Can't believe you didn't even mention James Marsden. Such a cutie. And here's a role where he actually gets the girl!