27 Dresses

The Good: great chemistry between the actors; and an equal balance between humor and romance

The Bad: an ugly assortment of bridesmaid dresses - haha

The Bottom line: a creative storyline with laughs and a great romantic interest

27 dresses is a story about 27 dresses, well not quite. Jane Nichols (Katherine Heigl ) is the resident bridesmaid for all her friends. She knows what needs to be done, and her friends can depend on her to plan out a successful wedding. Although she sacrifices her own life to help out her friends, her own love life is questionable.

Enter Kevin Doyle (James Marsden), a charming wedding announcements editor. He writes about the most romantic stories that result in absolute fantasy-like weddings. Although he writes about these mushy-romantic stories, he does not believe in them. He wants to write about hard hitting news stories, but keeps getting stuck in these wedding announcements because he is too good at them. Well imagine what happens when Doyle meets Nichols. A girl who absolutely loves the fairytale weddings and a boy who is absolutely cynical about them; well it didn’t go well. Through the movie, Doyle helps Nichols help realize her own true life passions, and understand why she does so much for others but nothing for herself. Well for the 27 dresses? It signifies the 27 weddings that she was a bridesmaid for.

Just as the title suggests, we get to see 27 uniquely styled bridesmaid dresses. No, I am just going to say it, they were just plain ugly. I have to probably congratulate the costume designer in this movie to come up with the most outrageous dresses for her closet. Each dress from each wedding was from a specific themed wedding, and probably could be used as Halloween costumes. And the great thing about Jane is that she kept every single one of her dresses with her.

Kevin: [motions to a "Gone With the Wind"-style dress] What the hell is that?
Jane: Theme wedding.
Kevin: What was the theme? Humiliation?

Well let me talk about the character relationships that make this movie a romantic comedy. This movie provides sisterly relations and love relations, which will keep you laughing with your friends. First of all Jane’s younger sister, Tess ( Malin Akerman), is as opposite of Jane as you can be. As Jane is spending her time helping others in the shadows, Tess is there trying to get everyone’s attention in the spotlight. I love the dialogues between them, especially when they have different views on what is important in life.

Jane: You tell him the truth or I will.
Tess: No, you won't. You wouldn't hurt a fly and you definitely wouldn't hurt me, I'm your sister.
Jane: That was yesterday. Today you're just some bitch who broke my heart and cut up my mother's wedding dress.

This quote was concerning the moment when Tess was lying to her fiancé about her real life just so that she can marry him for his rich lifestyle.

Now the relationship between Jane and Kevin is hilarious too. A cynic and an optimist arguing on the subject of weddings and bridesmaid dresses is really amusing if you think about.

Kevin: Wait, what are those?
Jane: [nervous] Nothing.
Kevin: Are those...?
Jane: No!
Kevin: Are they bridesmaid dresses?
Jane: This is none of your business!
Kevin: Oh... good God. What, you kept them all? You have a whole closetful? Why?
Jane: I have a lot of friends and I like to keep them.
Kevin: [snickering] Right. Well, that makes complete sense because they're... *beautiful*.
Jane: Some of them are not that bad.
Kevin: Not that bad? I'd like to see one of them that's not that bad.

Overall it’s a great feel good romantic comedy. Possibly not a great movie for your guy friends, but this movie was a huge hit with the females when it got released. Studio research showed that 75% of the audience was female. So for your next sleepover check this movie out at your local video store. And to leave you with something, here is a wise quote of love from Kevin Doyle, “Love is patient, love is kind, love means slowly losing your mind. “