Made of Honor

Before there was McJamie, there was McDreamy, and Owen Hunt, and Made of Honor. I won’t say the chain gets progressively worse – I’m partial to Kevin McKidd, but those hoping to triple down on this Grey’s Anatomy/Scotland/romcom Venn diagram are in for a disappointment. The movie comes with your standard cool girl caught between two hot guys plot. Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) has been best buds with Tom (Patrick Dempsey) since the day he wandered into her dorm room drunk and wearing a Bill Clinton mask. After hearing about his one night stands for years, she’s ready to have a steady, adult male in her life. A business trip to Scotland leads her to Colin (McKidd), a Scottish royal who gallops in on a horse and rescues her from a downpour and a flock of sheep.

Tom doesn’t take the news of Hannah and Colin’s sudden engagement well and has no idea what to make of the fact that she wants him to be her maid of honor. He does, however, come to realize that she’s the one for him and that maybe he needs to grow up a little. This decision by the writers seems more like a matter of novelty and plot more than anything, but try to find feminist undertones if you must. In the end, it’s mostly a recycled best friend trope, an excuse to keep Tom close to the wedding planning and in conflict with the bride, the groom, and his own feelings.

The limited time that he spends with the bridal party ends up reinforcing some gender conventions. Through Tom’s eyes, we see that Hannah’s friends are catty as ever, whining about dress sizes and tricking him into organizing a bachelorette party that ends with grandma sporting glow-in-the-dark thunderbeads. And though he’s open to sharing his feelings with his basketball friends, including token black best friend (Kadeem Hardison), he proves to be a clueless dude when it comes to what women want.

Wealthy, cultured Colin by contrast is something conjured up from a storybook filled with Scottish clichés – kilts, tartan sashes, bagpipes, castles, Highland games. But might he be too dreamy, too perfect? This idea that American women love the pretense of all things British but in the end just really want an average Joe (in this case who looks like McDreamy) is one of the more interesting things about this movie. In fact, Tom turns out to be so average that we don’t really know anything about him. Outside of his womanizing and puppy dog devotion to Hannah, he’s pretty blank. Though Dempsey looks great for the part, there’s not much of it to play. Which is ironic since the movie is more about Tom than about Hannah. He’s Julia Roberts to her Dermot Mulroney. In that way, you could say this movie subverts expectations, focusing more on the male character’s development. He is the one who finds self-fulfillment by choosing a partner, but do we really need another film about a handsome white guy trying to find himself?

Released: 2008
Prod: Neal H. Moritz
Dir: Paul Weiland
Writer: Adam Sztykiel, Deborah Kaplan, Harry Elfont
Cast: Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan, Kevin McKidd, Kathleen Quinlan, Sydney Pollack, Chris Messina, Kadeem Hardison, Richmond Arquette, Busy Philipps, Whitney Cummings, Kevin Sussman, James Sikking
Time: 101 min
Lang: English
Country: United States
Reviewed: 2016

Due Date

Great road trip movies transform the landscape into its own character, and Due Date, which sees its two protagonists drive from Atlanta to Los Angeles, sneaks in some stunning shots of America the Beautiful. But that’s about all it has going for it. Director Todd Phillips’s follow up to The Hangover, it aims for every benchmark set by his 2009 hit – brotherhood, inanity, untamed humor – and falls short.

Part of the problem with movies that take place mostly in a car is that they force a sense of claustrophobia. If you don’t like the characters you’re riding with, it can feel like being crammed in the back seat with miles to go and no rest area in sight. And Peter Highman (Robert Downey, Jr.) and Ethan Tremblay (Zach Galifainakis) are not the best travel partners. Of the two, I’d rather be trapped with Peter, an uptight architect who probably squeezes his toothpaste from the bottom up and rolls his toilet paper under. You might not get great conversation out of him, but you’d arrive at your destination safely and on time, two things Ethan, an aspiring actor with questionable grooming habits, could never deliver.

After he gets both of them kicked off a flight and onto the No Fly List, he must get them across country in time for the birth of Peter’s first child. Though Peter has no money, luggage, or ID, he should be able to think of a way to get home that doesn’t involve bumming a ride off Ethan, but there’s a movie to be made, dammit.

And so he entrusts the task to a relentlessly awkward man-child with limited self-awareness, and who thinks Shakespeare’s a pirate. Ethan communicates best with his “glaucoma medication” supplier, carries his father’s ashes in a coffee can (that’s just is never, ever a good idea), and hopes to make it big in Hollywood via guest appearances on Two and a Half Men. Yet when Galifainakis puts the Between Two Ferns weirdness on pause, there is something wonderfully good-natured about his character. Ethan’s lack of cynicism begs to be laughed at in this world, and we do, until we realize he doesn’t care all that much. He’s still smiling, clutching his tiny bulldog and that damn coffee can.

These moments are fleeting though, and it’s hard to find a sustained and satisfying sequence that delivers the comedy gold. There are a few cameos that are amusing – Juliette Lewis as a weed dealer, Jamie Foxx as Peter’s friend who may or may not be sleeping with his wife (Michelle Monaghan), but most of the film is painfully unsatisfying because, while we sit around waiting for things to turn funny, we are still sharing time with a high-strung jerk and a guy who masturbates in tandem with his dog.

Released: 2010
Prod: Todd Phillips, Daniel Goldberg, Susan Downey
Dir: Todd Phillips
Writer: Alan R. Cohen, Alan Freedland, Adam Sztykiel
Cast: Robert Downey, Jr., Zach Galifianakis, Michelle Monaghan, Jamie Foxx, Juliette Lewis, Matt Walsh, RZA, Danny McBride
Time: 95 min
Lang: English
Country: United States
Reviewed: 2015