Marry Me (2022)
Directed by: Kat Coiro
Premise: A pop music superstar (Jennifer Lopez) is set to wed her fellow superstar beau (Maluma) in a heavily promoted media spectacle. Minutes before the nuptials she discovers that her fiancé has been unfaithful and she impulsively marries a stranger in the crowd (Owen Wilson).
What Works: Marry Me has an unlikely premise but the filmmakers do a good job making this story credible. Kat is a popstar at the height of her fame who gets caught up in the media hoopla around her planned wedding to a handsome but unfaithful fellow musician. The circumstances in which Kat is hurt and humiliated make her impulsive decision believable. The film also benefits from its casting. Putting Jennifer Lopez in this role capitalizes on her talents as an actress but also as a singer. Lopez has been a fixture of the tabloid press which has often speculated about her marriages and love life and placing Lopez in this role inherently gives the movie an added layer of reality. Owen Wilson is well cast as Charlie, the math teacher who finds himself wedded to someone way out of his league. Wilson’s folksy nice guy manner works here. Movie romances requires that the audience like these people and want to see them together. Marry Me achieves this and the film is a likeable Hollywood love story. And in general, that’s what this movie is. Marry Me adheres to the conventions of Hollywood romance and if offers viewers the kind of familiar pleasures that they come to these sorts of movies to see.
What Doesn’t: Love stories require an obstacle keeping the couple apart. The more concrete that obstacle, the better. This is the weakest link of Marry Me. The only things keeping Kat and Charlie apart are their different lifestyles and Charlie’s insecurity. Their lifestyle differences are overcome surprisingly easily. Kat jet sets around the world but the couple manage to connect through phone and video calls. That leaves Charlie’s self-doubt as the only source of conflict. He feels threatened by Kat’s wealth and his unfamiliarity with her lifestyle as well as Kat’s lingering relationship with her former fiancé. But it’s never credible that Kat is going to dump Charlie and his insecurity is vague. As a result, Marry Me is without any tension and the attempts to interject some conflict come across forced. No one fights for their love by overcoming an obstacle or making a sacrifice and as a result Marry Me is dramatically flat.
Bottom Line: Marry Me is a safe Hollywood romance. It doesn’t do anything new or innovative and it is averse to conflict but Marry Me is affable and romantic enough to satisfy viewers who binge Hallmark movies.
Episode: #891 (February 13, 2022)