MADE OF HONOR (Paul Weiland). 103 minutes. Opens Friday (May 2). For venues and times, see listings. Rating: N
Made of Honor lost me for good when it introduced Emily Nelson as Hilary, the jolly, fat bridesmaid who’s on a liquid diet so she can fit into a size 8 dress. She’s not a figure of sympathy, but of mockery we’re encouraged to laugh at her for the rest of the picture, drooling over food she can’t eat, fainting from hunger and then having her dress split, audibly and embarrassingly, as she sits down in a church pew.
The worst thing? The preview audience thought this was hysterical.
Made Of Honor stars Patrick Dempsey as Tom, a ludicrously wealthy, stunningly vacuous New York cocksman (imagine Barney from How I Met Your Mother without Neil Patrick Harris’s absurd sense of dignity) who suddenly realizes he’s in love with his long-time Platonic best pal, Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), just as she gets engaged to a burly, charming Scotsman (Kevin McKidd). What can Tom do, as Hannah’s maid of honour, but try to break up the wedding from the inside?
Yep, it’s the dude version of My Best Friend’s Wedding, without the implied judgment that made Julia Roberts seem like kind of an awful person by the end of it. Tom is clearly a sociopath – he drives in Manhattan, for Christ’s sake – and Made Of Honor is okay with that.
Which is almost as creepy as Dempsey’s performance, when you think about it.
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