I decided I liked Mandy Moore when I read that she’d apologized for the quality of her early albums. Perhaps one day she’ll be moved to apologize for her 2007 pair of duds, consisting of Because I Said So and this misbegotten romantic comedy in which she costars with John Krasinski of NBC’s The Office. Or maybe the four writers should be sorry. The premise is that the two have decided to get married, but her priest requires anyone he marries to take his marriage course. The priest is played by Robin Williams, which means the first we see of him is using a game show format to teach the Ten Commandments to a Sunday school class. It’s slightly worrisome that the last one the kids guess is the one rendered as “Be Chill. Don’t Kill,” which I suppose might be funny to some schoolchildren.
“What do you do, besides little Sadie?” the clergyman asks the prospective groom, who quickly sizes up the man as a nutter, but proceeds with the course to please Sadie. It must be to Moore’s credit that Sadie is fairly likeable, since her faith in this stalking servant of the Lord seems misguided, even before he starts committing arrestable offenses.
It’s a tricky thing to show a couple not get along realistically, though, and this movie doesn’t manage it. (Compare 2006’s The Break-Up.) Nothing much is realistic. First, there’s my pet peeve about movie weddings, which is that no one ever has a proper engagement period. It’s only three weeks here. Have any screenwriters ever tried to hire caterers and bands on short notice? Three weeks isn’t even enough time to mail the invitations. More importantly, it’s not enough time to show how two people who’ve supposedly never had an argument grow suddenly apart. Except for a brief prologue, we never even see the couple before the engagement, and so the way we find out that Sadie is a control freak is because someone else says she is.
It may be too much to demand character development in a Robin Williams comedy, but how about comedy? Silly isn’t the same as funny. I will admit that the weird-looking fake twin babies that the course requires the couple to carry around made me laugh. On the other hand, giving Williams a twelve-year-old protégé/henchman didn’t. (With this and his similar role in Nancy Drew, Josh Flitter may be trying to corner the market in obnoxious tween boy roles.)
Probably License to Wed will appeal more to people who like watching Williams do his schtick rather than romantic comedy audiences. At least he seems to have a personality. Moore is nice, but has little to work with, and Krasinski is merely a blander version of his mild-mannered TV character. Their chemistry is middling. Four of Krasinski’s Office mates appear in small roles, and the show’s frequent director, Ken Kwapis, does that chore here. But the movie is as broad and dull as the TV show is sharp and subtle.
IMDB link
written 7/9/07
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