“Marry Me” - Film Review
The best romantic comedies are always centered on a slightly unbelievable premise. Think of Meg Ryan falling in love with Tom Hanks’ voice on the radio in Sleepless in Seattle. Or Sandra Bullock pretending to be Peter Gallagher’s comatose fiancé and falling in love with his brother instead in While You Were Sleeping. There’s a slight suspension of disbelief required from the audience, but that’s what makes the genre so enduring. It’s make-believe and grand enough to allow viewers to get swept up in the wonder, but grounded enough to inspire belief in happily ever after in the real world.
Critics have signaled Marry Me as the beginning of a rom-com Renaissance. It has all the trappings of the beloved genre, which has fallen out of favor in recent years. Marry Me stars Jennifer Lopez as Kat Valdez, one of the world’s biggest pop stars. She’s been working in the industry for many years, but has never received critical recognition with a Grammy nomination. She’s engaged to fellow singer Bastian (Maluma), and their wedding is set to be the event of the season. Not only will they be reciting their vows in front of a massive, sold-out crowd, it will be livestreamed for millions more at home. The icing on the cake is the duet Kat and Bastian have written together (creatively titled “Marry Me”) to be released after their nuptials.
Of course true love is never easy in a romantic comedy. Mere moments before Bastian and Kat are set to go on stage for their big moment, Page Six leaks a video of Bastian cheating on Kat with her assistant. Kat takes the stage on her own, tears clearly visible, and decides that she’s going to go through with getting married to someone because love is about the risk. When the house lights come up, she sees Charlie (Owen Wilson), looking very much out of place, and asks him to marry her. He agrees, and the two begin a whirlwind charade of a romance that benefits each of them. Kat desperately wants to avoid being the butt of the joke and Charlie genuinely wants to get to know the real Kat, not her carefully cultivated image.
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Watching two people trapped in a fake relationship develop true feelings for each other should work perfectly in a romantic comedy. There are times when it feels like the film is really getting into the spirit of the genre. Charlie’s nerdy, shy, math teacher matched up with Kat’s whirlwind of glamorous fame is a textbook pairing. He shows her how to slow down and come back to earth and she shows him how to open up and be frivolous. They chaperone Charlie’s school dance together and that moment should be so saccharinely sweet. It’s the sort of toothache audiences sign up for, but that moment, and the movie as a whole, feels two-dimensional.
It’s hard to pinpoint exactly where Marry Me goes wrong, but the blame certainly cannot fall on Lopez. This type of movie is in her wheelhouse. She’s the perfect actor to deliver a groan-inducing line in a close-up shot as a single tear falls from her face. The audience will always believe what she’s saying. If Meg Ryan ruled the rom-com in the ’90s, then the aughts are all about Lopez. Unfortunately, this movie doesn’t play to her strengths. In fact, the script actively avoids giving depth to Lopez’s Kat. Anything the audience gleans about her is from vague throwaway lines about failed relationships and marriages. It’s not enough to paint a picture of why this woman would marry a random man she picked out from the crowd. And yet, despite that, Lopez’s performance makes you want to stick around.
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The 112-minute runtime is particularly grueling because all the characters feel like cardboard, so flimsy they simply cannot support the lengthy burden that has been placed on their shoulders. Part of the issue lies with the unclear passage of time and the development of Kat and Charlie’s relationship that seems to be happening offscreen. It’s like the writers were afraid to let Kat and Charlie be alone in a room together with a pure-dialogue scene because then they’d have to flesh out these characters. Instead, the audience must depend on montages to learn about the leaps and bounds these characters have somehow made.
In the end, it’s not the slightly fantastical plot of marrying a stranger in the crowd that is Marry Me’s downfall, but rather the lack of humanity that brings the larger-than-life down to earth. Despite spending almost two hours with Kat and Charlie, the audience isn’t rewarded with seeing the characters grow in any meaningful way. Instead, they’re given a slapdash compilation of familiar romantic comedy scenes without an ounce of the charm or staying power of the romantic comedies of yesteryear.
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