The Wedding Date (2005)
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A single woman hires a male escort to pose as her boyfriend at her sister's wedding to make her ex-fiancé jealous.
The story
Kat Ellis is a single New Yorker who returns to her parents' house in London to be the maid of honor at her younger half-sister Amy's wedding. The best man is her former fiancé, who unexpectedly dumped her two years ago. Anxious about confronting and eager to impress him, she hires suave escort Nick Mercer to pose as her boyfriend. Kat intends to make her former flame, Jeffrey, jealous, but her plan backfires when Nick convinces everyone, including her, that they are madly in love. Kat then feels herself, too, falling for Nick as he slowly falls for her.
Full plot (contains spoilers)
Kat Ellis is a single New Yorker who returns to her parents' house in London to be the maid of honor at her younger half-sister Amy's wedding. The best man is her former fiancé, who unexpectedly dumped her two years ago. Anxious about confronting and eager to impress him, she hires suave escort Nick Mercer to pose as her boyfriend. Kat intends to make her former flame, Jeffrey, jealous, but her plan backfires when Nick convinces everyone, including her, that they are madly in love. Kat then feels herself, too, falling for Nick as he slowly falls for her. The night before the wedding, Kat discovers Amy slept with Jeffrey when they were still together, and he dumped her because he believed he was in love with Amy. Nick had discovered this a day earlier, and when Kat finds that out, she feels betrayed from all sides, and puts Nick off. He decides to return to America, and leaves Kat the money she had paid him. On the wedding day, seeing Kat distressed, her step-father asks her if Nick 'is the guy for you'. Kat realizes he is, so she sets off to find him. Meanwhile, just before the wedding ceremony, Amy confesses her betrayal to her fiancé, Ed, but professes her love for him. Upset, Ed chases Jeffrey out of the church and down the road. Jeffrey insists he gave up on Amy and believes he's done nothing wrong. To which Ed calls him a "back-stabbing weasel", though Jeffrey believes he's still not in the wrong as he slept with Amy before she and Ed dated. Ed shouts out that Jeffrey was engaged to Kat, proving he was still in the wrong for what he did to Kat. Nick picks up Ed in a car as Jeffrey disappears into the woods. They talk about love, and Ed decides he loves Amy more than he is angry. To make it clearer he should go back, Nick tells Ed if he returned, the couple would end up having great makeup sex. They return to the church, with Nick as the 'new' best man. Just before the ceremony, Nick tells Kat he realized he'd "... rather fight with you than make love with anyone else", and they kiss passionately. Kat and Nick begin a real relationship, and he gives up his job. Amy and Kat reconcile. TJ, Kat's cousin, also apparently enjoys a moment with Woody after the wedding. Jeffrey learns absolutely nothing, and at the end is seen trying to get the attention of a female neighbor.
- First release year
- 2005
- Runtime (minutes)
- 90
- Production countries
- United States
- Original languages
- English
- Directors
- Clare Kilner
- Writers
- Dana Fox · writer
- Cast and characters
- Debra Messing; Dermot Mulroney; Amy Adams; Peter Egan; Holland Taylor
- Genres
- romantic comedy
- Themes
- romance; betrayal; identity
- Tone and mood
- romantic; lighthearted
- Premise and plot tags
- romantic comedy; wedding; fake dating; male escort
- Source material / true-story basis
- Asking for Trouble by Elizabeth Young (2002)
- Content notes
- male prostitution
- Reception
- The film received generally unfavorable reviews, with critics calling it shopworn and bland. It held an 11% approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes and a weighted average of 32 out of 100 on Metacritic, though it received a 'B' grade from CinemaScore audiences.
- Reported review scores
- Rotten Tomatoes · score: 3.9/10 · review count: 142; Metacritic · score: 32 · scale: 100 · review count: 34
- Production trivia
- Some outdoor scenes where they are playing rounders were filmed on location in Parliament Hill Fields, overlooking central London.; The film was also filmed in parts of Surrey, including Shere, Chilworth, Godalming and Guildford.
Film metadata comes from the open sources listed in Credits & Contact. Catalogue details may be incomplete.
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