Runaway Bride Review
by Homer Yen (homer_yen AT yahoo DOT com)August 2nd, 1999
“Runaway Bride” – Lighter than Air, Fluffier than a Cloud
by Homer Yen
(c) 1999
Some studio executive must have been comfortably reclining back in his office chair with his feet planted on his desk thinking about what the next great movie project will be. This executive is probably a last-minute doer. And just before the deadline hits, he snaps his finger and says ‘aha’, as if an idea so clever entered his mind that he rushes forth convinced that he has a winner. This idea was to reunite the winning team that brought us the wonderful 1990 fairy tale, Pretty Woman. With Director Gary Marshall again at the helm, Julia Robert’s radiant smile, and Richard Gere’s good looks, how can this miss? Well…
Gere plays Ike Graham, a columnist for USA Today who seems to approach his job much like the aforementioned studio executive. With a deadline fast approaching, he sips his drink at the local watering hole trying to come up with his latest article. Graham’s column is accused of being laced with bitter diatribes of the opposite sex, and is the target of many a hate mail from his female readers. Even little old ladies come up to him and hit him with rolled up newspapers. At the bar, he meets a person who tells him of Maggie Carpenter (Roberts), a serial fiancée who seems to live for nothing other than pulling the heartstrings of men and then leaving them at the altar. Like the studio executive, Ike is so convinced that this idea is a winner that he rushes forth with this article without even checking the facts. Maggie writes a bitter note to Ike’s editor (Rita Wilson), and he is subsequently fired. Ike’s best friend (Hector Elizondo) tells him to go do some personal research on the matter to get his job and his reputation back. Is she really as bad as they say?
So, now he’s off to picturesque Hale, MD to determine the truth of Maggie Carpenter. Maggie is completely flustered by his presence, especially in light of her impending fourth upcoming wedding attempt to Coach Bob (Christopher Meloni). She does his best to brush him off, but Ike is not so easily dissuaded. And before you know it, he’s making friends with Maggie’s sottish but likeable dad, her spirited grandma, and her best friend, played by Joan Cusack. Despite their initial dislike for one another, they seem to have an understanding for one another. After questioning her former jilted fiancés, he realizes that it’s not because she’s a mean-spirited person. Rather, it’s because she just doesn’t know what she wants and fears that she’ll never find true love if she marries first. Ike, to no surprise, has similar problems. Their commonalties and ongoing bickering eventually evolves into attraction for one another. This is the kind of story where the audience knows what will happen way before Ike and Maggie do. Sure, there’s a minor crisis here, and the revelation that accompanies it, but the story is as predictable as the steps of the Macarena.
I guess that I so moved by Pretty Woman because it was a movie that was so
Cinderella-esque. How could anything like that happen in real life? It was implausible, but I loved it. And to that point, I also have greater praise for Robert’s earlier summer release, Notting Hill for that same reason. This movie fails to generate the magic and warmth that it promised to be. Yes, Roberts and Gere have good chemistry, and they are both good to look at. But without their star power, the studio moguls when deciding to make this picture probably wouldn’t have said ‘I do.’
Grade: C+
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Originally posted in the rec.arts.movies.reviews newsgroup. Copyright belongs to original author unless otherwise stated. We take no responsibilities nor do we endorse the contents of this review.
