27 Dresses

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27 Dresses

Theatrical release poster
Directed by Anne Fletcher
Produced by Gary Barber
Roger Birnbaum
Jonathan Glickman
Jeffrey Silver
Written by Aline Brosh McKenna
Starring Katherine Heigl
James Marsden
Malin Åkerman
Edward Burns
Judy Greer
Music by Randy Edelman
Cinematography Peter James
Editing by Priscilla Nedd-Friendly
Distributed by 20th Century Fox
Release date(s) January 18, 2008
Country United States
Language English
Budget $30 million
Gross revenue $148 million
Official website
Allmovie profile
IMDb profile

27 Dresses is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Aline Brosh McKenna. The film stars Katherine Heigl as Jane and James Marsden as Kevin.

The film was released January 10, 2008 in Australia. It opened in the United States on January 18, 2008 and in the United Kingdom and Ireland on March 27, 2008.[1]

Contents

[edit] Plot

Jane Nichols (Katherine Heigl) has been a bridesmaid for twenty-seven weddings. One night when she is attending two weddings almost simultaneously, she is pushed over by a crowd trying to catch the bride's bouquet and suffers a blow to the head.

A good-looking man helps her up and introduces himself as Kevin (James Marsden). He helps her to her taxi and brings her home, arguing with her for most of the cab ride about weddings. He is on his way home when he realizes Jane accidentally left her filofax in the cab, and he picks it up. It turns out that Kevin writes the Commitments page articles for the New York City Journal, under the pseudonym of Malcolm Doyle, which happens to be Jane's favorite writer. However, he longs to escape the Commitments page and write "real" news and investigative pieces. After seeing Jane's planner, he decides to write about "the perpetual bridesmaid" so he can advance his career.

The next day, Kevin sends Jane flowers at her office, but she does not know he was the one who sent them. Her best friend and co-worker, Casey (Judy Greer), confirms that Jane is attending an engagement party for the company's flaky receptionist, Gina, that evening. It is revealed Jane is in love with her boss, George (Edward Burns), and that he is the only one in the office who doesn't know about Jane's feelings. Jane's younger sister, Tess (Malin Akerman), comes to visit and decides to come to the party. At the party, George asks if what he left on Jane's desk was all right with her, if their new type of relationship was all right. Casey convinces Jane that George sent the flowers, and encourages her to reveal her feelings right now. At that moment, Tess arrives at the party, having been invited by her sister. As Tess and George make eyes at each other, Jane introduces them and later learns he had left a dry cleaning slip on her desk. Kevin appears and returns Jane's filofax. She later learns that he has written his name and number all over the planner which prompts her to call him.

After a night of dancing with George, Tess comes back to Jane's place in the morning, still wearing her same dress and waxing poetic about her impromptu date. Soon, Tess and George are dating. Tess finds out from Jane that George is a vegetarian, likes animals and the outdoors. Although Tess isn't into any of these things, she pretends to be to get George to like her. After a rapid courtship that pains Jane as much as it pleases Tess, the new couple gets engaged. Mr. Nichols, Jane and Tess' dad, gives Tess their late mother's wedding dress to wear, even though Jane was supposed to get it. With Jane now planning the dream wedding of her younger sister to the man she loves, Jane also finds out that Tess has booked the boat house at which Jane always dreamed of getting married and that Tess intends to marry George in three weeks.

When he arrives to interview Tess and George for his forthcoming Commitments profile on them, Kevin is revealed as "Malcolm Doyle" to a shocked Jane. Tess, not knowing about the previous weddings, tells Kevin that Jane is his number one fan and that she cuts out all his articles. Jane thinks Kevin is a cynic and hates weddings, and when she finds out what he writes, she is shocked by his seemingly affectionate and beautiful articles. However, she still hates him.

Kevin has Jane try on all her bridesmaid dresses stuffed in her closet, takes photos of each one and sends the article to his boss. She agrees to put it on the front page, but Kevin asks her to give him another week so that he can notify her about the piece. He thinks he made Jane too one-dimensional, and his editor suspects that he is starting to fall for her.

Meanwhile, while scanning items for a bridal registry, Jane and Kevin register Tess for the ugliest things. Jane and George meet to discuss the wedding food. Kevin walks in, and realizes Jane is in love with George. He tries to walk out, but they notice him. He still seems jealous, but he insists he take George's place linen shopping so that the groom-to-be can make a family dinner on time. While in the car with Jane, Kevin confronts her about her love for George. Jane denies it, and speeds up the road, causing the car to hydroplane, and become stuck in the mud at the side of the road. The two hike to a bar in the rain to find a phone, and as there is none, they have several, several drinks instead.

Kevin and Jane begin to talk and realize they both have something in common, their favorite part of weddings. They both like to look at the groom when the bride makes her grand entrance, so that they can see the expression on his face. Both end up getting drunk and dancing on the counter singing "Bennie and the Jets". After they jump down, Kevin admits to Jane that he cried at one wedding that he'd claimed to have forgotten, and they kiss. Things go to the next level in the car, where they continue making out and eventually, have sex.

The next morning Jane says that she's never "done that before" so randomly, and things are a little awkward. They go out to breakfast. There, Jane is recognized from the article Kevin wrote about her because his boss decided to just publish it as it was, complete with all of the photos. Jane is embarrassed and furious, and storms out of the diner. Kevin gets upset with his editor, but is reminded that the choice to publish was not his. Tess gets extremely angry at the way Kevin portrayed her as bridezilla, but in a very haughty way, decides to "forgive" Jane for the article. However, Jane seems unable to forgive Tess after seeing that Tess has destroyed their late mother's wedding dress in her alterations. Jane blows up at the bridal shop, saying that if Tess doesn't tell George the truth about who she is, Jane will.

As requested earlier, Jane makes a slideshow to show at Tess and George's engagement party. Tess had instructed her only to say certain things, but after making sure that Tess did not reveal the truth to George, Jane shows pictures of Tess with other guys, eating ribs, and holding a cat by the tail - in short, doing all the stuff she'd told George that she never did. Everyone immediately recognizes what's going on, and the crowd is stunned into silence - including their disappointed father. After the young Hispanic child that George mentors, Pedro, tells the crowd that Tess had them cleaning his apartment for money, George has heard enough. He storms out of the party, and immediately breaks off the engagement. A shattered Tess gives Jane the news. Though no one knew he was at the party, Kevin comes outside to comfort Jane, and tells her how proud he is. He gives her a BlackBerry to keep track of her wedding stuff for all the trouble he caused her, and tells her he'll disappear from her life now. Tess and Jane eventually reconcile at their father's hardware store in Weehawken, and realize that neither has had it as easy as the other thought, especially since their mother died (when they were kids).

Calling Jane to be a last-minute date, George tells Jane he appreciates her because she never says no. Remembering that Kevin once said the same thing as a criticism of her, Jane snaps out of her sadness and immediately quits her job, admitting that she got too comfortable in the job, partially due to being in love with him. George surprises Jane with a passionate kiss, but both concede that there just isn't any chemistry. The phone rings at that moment to the song Kevin sung with her in the bar, Bennie and the Jets, and Jane tells George that she has to go - now.

After a tip from Kevin's buddy at the Journal, Jane runs to find Kevin covering yet another wedding. The bride recognizes her from Kevin's article, presses Jane for her Kevin story, and prompts Jane to announce that she loves him in front of Kevin and the entire wedding crowd. After descending from the stage, she sees Kevin stunned into silence.

Until he says simply, "Get over here". She enters his embrace and they kiss, prompting cheers from the crowd.

The story flashes forward one year into the future. There's yet another wedding, it seems - but this time, Jane is finally the bride. Tess, as the maid of honor, encounters George. Having turned over a new leaf, she admits to being broke, living in Brooklyn and eating hamburgers - essentially "re-introducing" herself to George, who greatly appreciates her honesty. Jane wears her 28th dress and finally has her moment where Kevin looks at her the way she always wanted to be looked at as she walks down the aisle. She also makes the 27 brides that she helped out wear the ridiculous dresses they forced her to wear for each of their weddings.

There is however, one mistake. In the newspaper article about their wedding, it states that there were only 27 bridesmaids. But there was 29 including her best friend Casey and her sister Tess.

[edit] Production

The film started filming on May 10, 2007. Portions of the movie were filmed in several locations in the state of Rhode Island.

[edit] Critical reception

As of March 24, 2008, the review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 36% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 112 reviews.[2] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 30 reviews.[3] The movie received an average score of 58.0% from 48 film critics according to Movie Tab. [4]

[edit] DVD release

DVD was released on Tuesday April 29th, 2008 in Widescreen and Full-Screen Editions.

[edit] Box office

As of May 7, 2008, 27 Dresses has grossed $76,727,525 in North America, and $71,942,145 overseas, for a total worldwide gross of $148,669,670. According to boxofficeguru.com, "The audience for the $30M-budgeted 27 Dresses was overwhelmingly female. Studio research showed that 75% of the crowd consisted of women, but the audience was evenly split between those over and under 25."[5]

[edit] References

  1. ^ 27 Dresses (2008) - Release dates. Internet Movie Database. Retrieved on 2008-01-18.
  2. ^ 27 Dresses - Movie Reviews, Trailers, Pictures - Rotten Tomatoes. Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved on 2008-01-18.
  3. ^ [? 27 Dresses (2008): Reviews]. Metacritic. Retrieved on 2008-01-18.
  4. ^ 27 Dresses Reviews - Movie Tab. Retrieved on 2008-05-24.
  5. ^ Weekend Box Office

[edit] External links