In reteaming the stars and director of 1990’s Pretty Woman, the producers of this film are obviously hoping for a runaway hit. What they have instead is a runaway train of ridiculous plot points, overdone zany cuteness and rom-com clichés as old as Richard Gere looks with his shock of grey-white hair. The only things that elevate it to the level of mediocrity are the undeniable chemistry of the two leads, and a strong supporting cast whose performances are better than their placeholder roles deserve.
Gere plays “Ike” Graham, a divorced New York Times columnist whose weekly misogynist diatribes cause old ladies on the street to hit him with their purses. Under deadline pressure, he writes an ill-informed piece about a small-town beauty known for dumping prospective husbands at the altar. This prompts the subject, Maggie Carpenter (Julia Roberts), to write a letter to the editor (Rita Wilson)—who just happens to be Ike’s ex-wife. Ike gets fired, but a chance for vindication arises when he takes on a freelance assignment to get the full story on Maggie.
Ike wastes no time insinuating himself into Maggie’s life and grilling all her friends, trying to prove his theory that she’s a bitter man-eater. (The best of these is Maggie’s best friend Peggy, played by Joan Cusack. Peggy may not be the brightest bulb in the chandelier, but she knows that the difference between her weirdness and Maggie’s quirkiness is a matter of looks.) Ike even gets to know Maggie’s current fiance, a sports-psychology-spouting football coach (Christopher Meloni, the double-crossing homosexual convict on TV’s Oz). Ike’s intrusive behaviour has the expected romantic-comedy effect on Maggie; she falls in love with him. Meanwhile, Ike’s discovery of the truth about Maggie causes him to fall in love with her. But what will happen when it’s Ike’s turn at the altar?
If you can bring yourself to care about that question, you have my congratulations for being so easy to entertain. Runaway Bride is everything I despise in a romantic comedy; it’s a formulaic foregone conclusion of a movie, a witless rehash that exists only because lots of people liked a different movie a long time ago. But it has to be said that the onscreen chemistry Gere and Roberts shared so famously in Pretty Woman is still in evidence. God help me, but they do make the perfect couple, even in the ain’t-we-adorable cruise control mode they both adopt here. (Roberts obligingly provides a couple of the goofy pratfalls and hysterical laughs her fans demand, while Gere offers up some of his best soulful gazes.) It would be interesting, not to mention infinitely more entertaining, to see what these two could do with some good old-fashioned Hepburn/Tracy dialogue. Now that would be a runaway hit.
(2/4)