Made of Honor

The fact that Made of Honor was produced by a production company called Original Films is funnier than any of the tired gags on display during the course of the film. There is absolutely nothing original to be found in its screenplay that is credited to three different people, but often comes across as a Frankenstein's Monster stitched together from the remains of other romantic comedies. The cast is attractive, and the scenery when the action switches overseas is pleasant, but there's absolutely nothing worthwhile on display. And no reason why audiences should be expected to waste full price and roughly 100 minutes watching it.

This is the kind of movie that has a plot where you know everything that's going to happen before you even set foot in the theater. Tom (Patrick Dempsey) and Hannah (Michelle Monaghan) have been best friends since they met in college 10 years ago. Never mind the fact that Dempsey was already well into his 30s in real life 10 years ago, and the attempt to make him look like a college student in the opening scenes don't quite come off right. We know they're right for each other, but by the standard law of the Idiot Plot, they have to be completely oblivious to the obvious. Tom's a ladies' man who finds himself with a different woman every night, and Hannah just accepts the fact that they'll always be friends. Tom, on the other hand, never quite realizes how important her friendship is until she has to leave for Scotland for six weeks on business. All of a sudden, nothing else matters, and he just wants to be with Hannah and tell her how he feels about her. When the two finally get back together, Tom is shocked to see she has a man on her arm - a dashing Scottish hunk named Colin (Kevin McKidd) who Hannah met during her trip overseas. They had a whirlwind romance during her short time there, and now they're getting married in just a few weeks.

The title comes from the fact that Hannah asks Tom to be her maid of honor at the wedding. The movie frequently portrays Hannah as a woman who doesn't exactly seem to think things through. Not only does she agree to marry this Colin guy seemingly mere days after meeting him, but she frequently puts her best friend Tom into humiliating situations that no one in their right mind would force someone to do. She forces Tom to work alongside a vindictive and spiteful ex-girlfriend of his (Busy Philipps) to help plan the wedding, completely ignoring the fact that this other woman is trying to sabotage Tom's attempts to plan the wedding. She also never once asks him what he thinks about this sudden change. The film's opening moments depict how close these two have been over the years, and then she suddenly expects him to accept the fact that she's jetting off to Scotland to live with a guy she's only known for less than a month. The fact that she never stops and asks Tom how he really feels makes her come across as more heartless and cynical than I think the filmmakers intended. So, Tom's a womanizer who essentially sees women as trophies, and Hannah's willing to throw her entire life away and leave everyone she loves behind for a cute guy she doesn't even know. And we're supposed to want to see these two people get together because?...

The filmmakers obviously never asked themselves that question, because the majority of Made of Honor is built around Tom trying to prove to Hannah that they're right for each other, and that she should marry him instead. Of course, the movie has to throw every contrived circumstance in the book to keep the characters from saying what needs to be said, or doing what needs to be done. Any semi-intelligent person could have these characters' problems solved in about ten minutes, but the film has to drag it out to feature length by having some situation or some person walk in at just the right moment to prevent them from saying those little words that would cause the end to come a lot sooner. It's a practice that makes me grow restless in my seat, especially when the characters are as uninteresting as depicted here. Patrick Dempsey and Michelle Monaghan are attractive leads, there's no denying that. But there's nothing for them to inhabit in the people they're playing. They have jobs, but never seem to actually do any work, giving Tom plenty of time to play basketball with his wacky one-liner spewing guy friends, and Hannah plenty of time to think of more ways to put Tom in awkward situations that are supposed to make us laugh, but only made me even more angry with each contrived and idiotic moment.

Tom and Hannah are not people, when you come right down to it. They do what's expected of them, and never seem to have a single thought in their heads except for what the plot requires them to think. It doesn't even matter if the thoughts they're having make any sense, as long as its convenient to the plot. I could look over this fact if the screenplay had some genuine wit to it, but it falls back on such moldy techniques as funny old ladies (an elderly woman at the wedding wears glow in the dark sex toys as jewelry, not knowing what they're supposed to be), and scenes where Tom constantly runs into people for no seemingly no reason at all, other than the writers were under the assumption he needed to fall down for an easy laugh. It can't even think of a reason for him to run into the other person, it just suddenly decides to make him a clutz at its own convenience. Everything's so manipulated and controlled in this movie that I didn't believe what I was seeing for a single second.

Romantic comedies are obviously fantasies, and a good one can make me let go of all logic, and just get wrapped into the fantasy. Made of Honor is too calculated and forced, and constantly lets it show in just about every scene. I didn't buy into the fantasy, because it kept on reminding me that the things I was seeing were supposed to happen. Here is a movie that's so focused on giving us what we expect, yet strangely manages to leave out the one thing we should expect - a likable lead couple that we want to see get together. Maybe if Tom and Hannah weren't slaves to the plot, and had some moments to be real people, I'd feel differently when the movie arrived at its inevitable and pre-packaged conclusion.

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