Made of Honour

So a best friend takes his best friend for granted until she gets engaged, subsequently cueing him to fall in love with her a wee bit too late, forcing him to try to force her to not only call off the wedding, but marry him instead to much adverse effect along the way. Sound familiar? A little too much perhaps – we’d been there, done that, bought the now stale formula and the little Julia Roberts souvenirs.

Nevertheless Made of Honour stars Patrick Dempsey as Tom, the wealthy city boy who follows a strict set of rules to keep his flings at arm’s length. Deeply suffering from emotional paraplegia, Tom can’t say, “I love you”, not to his BFF Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), nor his marriage-addicted father (Sydney Pollack). Hannah then departs for a six-week business trip, leaving Tom to reform and re-evaluate his feelings for her when his life starts to seem shallow in the void she left behind. So then he decides to ask her out, but she returns with fiancé in tow, subsequently asking him to be her maid of honour. Then the scheming wedding planning begins.

While taking a guy’s perspective for a chick flick is a fresh, shallow update, with all the man jock jokes, Made of Honour sadly falls into a pit of clichéd everything else. And sadly, the highs of the acting performances came not from the lead actors, but instead, their characters’ parents and grandparents - old people are cute! However, a lot of people tend to buy this sort of junk, so it might be enjoyable, but barely memorable. And what’s with the wordplay in “Made” of Honor anyway? Insignificant, just like the story it depicts.

Cast Patrick Dempsey, Michelle Monaghan and Sydney Pollack Director Paul Weiland Runtime 101 minutes Opens 19 June

Text Claudia Low