27 DRESSES [PG-13]
It’s difficult to describe Emmy winner Katherine Heigl’s appeal without sounding like a boor, a chauvinist or Jerry Lewis, so in the interest of saving you, the reader, from terminal eyestrain from reading a long-winded essay about the fineries of the comedic art, let’s just say she’s one funny…person. In the latest comedy from The Devil Wears Prada director Anne Fletcher, “Grey’s Anatomy” star Heigl brings more of the kind of warm, wide grins that she delivered in the 2007 summer hit, Knocked Up. In this one, she plays Jane, a 27-time bridesmaid and expert on planning the weddings of others. Naturally, she has an inability to focus on making happiness of her own. When she meets Kevin (James Marsden), a cynical wedding columnist for a big New York paper, she finds the courage to tell her boss, George (Edward Burns), about her feelings for him. Sure, it’s formula (like My Best Friend’s Wedding minus the charming gay man), and we know who’s going to end up with who and how, but it’s fun and comforting watching them get there. Mardsen, who was spot-on as ‘60s dance show host Corny Collins in the movie adaptation of the musical Hairspray, is a good foil for Heigl’s self-effacing good girl, and they have a nice chemistry. He has the kind of welcoming face and natural charisma that not only makes girls of all stripes ga-ga, but also prompts straight guys to place him on the secret “Guys I’d Kiss If I Had To” list that all straight guys mentally keep. Malin Akerman, one of the bright spots of the Farrelly Brothers’ 2007 remake of The Heartbreak Kid, is good as Jane’s sister, Tess, a spoiled brat much like the one that Cameron Diaz played in Curtis Hanson’s 2005 dramatic comedy, In Her Shoes. And if there were ever an award for Most Seriously Undervalued Comedic Support, then it would go to perpetual sidekick Judy Greer (The TV Set). She plays Casey, Jane’s best friend and sounding board, and while we still want the movie to be Heigl’s, more Judy Greer and less cold fish Ed Burns would be just fine. And not that it matters to anyone but the fetishists, but between the three female leads, there’s nearly 20 feet o’ funny gals here (sounds like the name of an off-Broadway revue). We’ll spare you the “high points of the movie” puns and just say that all the moving parts of this comedy machine work right (even if they are giant parts). –Robert Newton