# Runaway Bride (1999)

### reviewed by
David N. Butterworth

    RUNAWAY BRIDE
    A film review by David N. Butterworth
    Copyright 1999 David N. Butterworth

    ** (out of ****)

Nine years after they first struck Hollywood gold together in "Pretty Woman," Julia Roberts and Richard Gere have teamed up again with director Garry Marshall. Whereas many will be thrilled to see the two stars back together in "Runaway Bride," some will quickly realize that the most creative aspect of the film was the decision to reunite Roberts and Gere. Everything else plays like an afterthought.

The wafer-thin plot involves "USA Today" columnist Ike Graham (Gere) hearing of a woman famous for leaving men at the altar (three to date and counting). Intrigued and desperate for copy, Ike heads on down to Hale, Maryland to interview Maggie Carpenter (Roberts), and winds up falling in love with her.

            This is, after all, a romantic comedy.

Unfortunately, it's missing two critical ingredients: romance and comedy. OK, so I admit that this isn't my genre, but the comedy is trite, forced, and highly unoriginal, and as for the romance? Well... Roberts is engaging, she almost always is, but Gere is smug and full of himself. There's a scene in "Playing by Heart," an ensemble piece from earlier this year, in which Sean Connery humiliates himself by impersonating an excitable puppydog. Gere, it appears, was taking pointers.

The occasionally competent actor (or the screenwriters--probably both) goes out of his way to be cute in "Runaway Bride." Whether it's having his graying hair dyed all the colors of the rainbow, or providing whimsical voiceovers for cake decorations, or clowning around in a field like a drunken scarecrow to avoid "snakes," Gere relies on oafish physical comedy rather than witty or sophisticated dialogue. In fact, in "Runaway Bride," Gere approximates a male version of Laurie Metcalf, who used to be witty and sophisticated on "Rosanne," and is now oafish and physical on "The Norm Show." Metcalf puts in an appearance in "Runaway Bride" (as Mrs. Trout the baker) and she's about as welcome as the horribly corny songs on the soundtrack (Hall & Oates' "Maneater," for example).

Not all of the performers disappoint, however. Joan Cusack, as Maggie's friend Peggy Flemming ("not the ice skater"), nails her role delightfully, and unfortunate husband-to-be number four is given a charming naïveté by Christopher Meloni. Hector Elizondo, on the other hand, who co-starred with Gere and Roberts in "Pretty Woman," seems to have followed Gere's lead in "Runaway Bride" by staying up nights studying "How To Be Full of Yourself For Dummies."

Not content with being only sporadically funny and peripherally romantic, the film takes "important" time out to make some serious asides, such as portraying Maggie's father (Paul Dooley, who if nothing else gets to show off his juggling skills) as a struggling alcoholic. All this does is dilute a plotline that is already heavily watered down. How about this for an alternative characterization: Maggie's dad is, wait for it, *not* a struggling alcoholic!

I am not such a confirmed curmudgeon that I couldn't smile from time to time, or find the relationship between Ike and Maggie appealing on some "what else is there in this picture to get excited about anyway?" level. But "Runaway Bride" is, by anyone's standards, a marketing strategy first and a cute and funny movie second, and in that regard it--like the hippie, the priest, and the aristocrat all abandoned by Maggie--should have been left at the altar.

    --
    David N. Butterworth
    dnb@dca.net

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