A Bridesmaid in Love

source: A Bridesmaid in Love

Good movie!

source: A Bridesmaid in Love

Cate James (Tori Anderson) is an aspiring writer and a professional bridesmaid. She's hired to write a story about being a professional bridesmaid for a wedding magazine. She is presently a bridesmaid to her best friend Maxine and reconnects with Maxine's brother Matt. Tori Anderson is a charming adorable TV actress with understated comedic skills. She is great for this type of TV romance movies. It would be great if she has better partners. This guy is non-descript. He blends in with the background. The story has a few plot elements and little juice. This is rather bland even for a TV movie.

1st scene they leave the mats on ground after Yoga. Next time you see them with their mats. Maybe they left them cause working out again later. Almost everything tried on for Bridal shower was better than pants bride had on. Someone else spoke about weather, they keep showing them wearing coats. Yet going sleeveless for outdoor shower, yet main character has a long sleeve dress on & a coat. Someone should be cold or sweating on set. How he say she engaged & didn't tell him, it just happened, he just thinks he witnessed it. Ok, how many coats this gurl has Is it just my TV, lips and sound not in sync, sometimes so bad, I just move to a new movie.

The story borrows from so many formula elements. Cate calls herself a Professional Bridesmaid, but she is basically a wedding planner. She gets thrown together with the best man, or guy who had a crush on her in high school, to bring the wedding together at the last minute. Somehow combine that with Cate being a writer given an assignment for a wedding magazine. Meanwhile Cate's current boyfriend is a totally insensitive narcissist who asks for a break. But of course you know he doesn't go away completely. There's the big Misunderstanding which reminded me of Birthday Wish. The acting is poor to bad by everyone except Tori Anderson and Lucie Guest. Guest outclasses everyone else by a mile as far as ability to act. Anderson is OK, but she has it going for her that she is perfect as the sweet and upbeat leading lady. Sean Poague, like some of the other actors, seems like he is trying too hard. I didn't see much chemistry with Anderson. The dialogue has a few moments, but it's mostly average. I love how all the movies of this type seem to think that all women can fit in the same size dresses. There's a scene where Cate walks up to Maxine's closet obviously several inches taller than her and then tries on a half dozen of her outfits that seem to fit perfectly. And we won't even talk about body type. I will probably watch most movies with Anderson as a lead because she is appealing in looks and personality. Lucie Guest is always solid. But this movie was a disappointment in almost every other way.

I really like Tori Anderson and her pretty smiley eyes. She's been in two other Hallmarks I have seen and she was the primary reason why those movies were at least watchable. In one, she was the only bright spot, and in the other, she was an important ingredient in a production that worked in several ways. In this one, everything was going a long fine, until towards the end when we came to "big conflict" time. Let me back up. Tori plays a free lance writer whose specialty is tips and advice for brides and weddings. She is kind of like a wedding planner, but she actually is a "professional bridesmaid" who solves problems or possible disasters that creep up, and adds great ideas to make good weddings even better. She does this for brides in exchange for a healthy contribution to a worthy charity. Then she writes about it. When her childhood friend whose brother Matt was also once one of her best friends, is planning her wedding, Tori steps up. She has recently broken up with her loser boyfriend of 1 year, and Matt is the love interest. I really liked Matt. He was very attractive in a guy next door kind of way and was super sweet, like Tori. They were perfect for each other and were soon well on the way to googly eyes and true love, with Tori saving her friend's wedding from disaster right and left. Venue, caterer, dress, you name it and Tori saves it. Everything was burbling along fine, with a few side plots in addition to the wedding adventures. Her veterinarian ex, starts to pop up as well, which added to the anticipation and suspense. We see that he is regretting his assholery, and we are seeing that Tori (along with the viewer) is wondering what the heck she saw in him in the first place. I mean, when he shows up at her Dad's coffee shop on his way to the "Hamster Rehabilitation Conference" and her eyes start to dart around looking for escape, we know she has moved on. But he is clueless and he makes time in his busy busy Kitty and Puppy schedule to trap her alone so he can propose marriage. And this is where the movie takes a turn for the worse. Nice Matt sees him getting down on one knee and, despite their burgeoning love, good times, soulful gazes, and intimate conversations, he turns his back and leaves the premises without bothering to see the outcome. Because of course if a guy gets down on one knee, there is only one conclusion one can make, right? The girl says yes. No. There are two possible out comes, Matt. "Yes, I will marry you," or "Thanks, but no thanks." To make his insulting conclusion worse, he acts like a total jerk to her for the last 20 minutes of the movie. He gives her the cold shoulder and is very rude. Tori is confused and heartbroken, and I was irate. It was a very very bad example of the "The Big Misunderstanding". The utter stupidity ruined a pretty decent movie.

Is this supposed to be a summer wedding? So many rosy cheeks and red noses from the cold. And seeing their breath when they talk is very distracting when the actor is talking to the "love of his life" in a halter dress and he doesn't offer his coat to her. BRRRR.

source: A Bridesmaid in Love

Main character is very likable but not much chemistry with male counterpart. Some inconsistencies like...asking her to be the maid of honor the day before the wedding, and she just happens to have the perfect dress; supposed to be a big wedding at large venue but decide to have it in the backyard at the last minute...would still have to pay for venue at that point...also a lot fewer people in the backyard; they just happened to remake the wedding dress the night before without the bride ever trying it on! And it was cold enough you could see their breath at the reception when they talked while they are all in summer clothes. Makes it impossible to really enjoy the movie.