Hello! Welcome back to my blog about women directors. I have blogged about two films that were released last year. But this week I will be writing about a throwback, 27 Dresses. It was directed by Anne Fletcher and it stars Katherine Heigl, James Marsden, Malin Akerman and Edward Burns. I love rom-coms, and this film is one of my favorites so I thought it would be fun to rewatch and blog about. This post will contain spoilers of 27 Dresses.
The opening of the film is where we meet Jane (Katherine Heigl). She is always the bridesmaid, never the bride, and has booked herself for two weddings in the same night. Kevin (James Marsden) is a reporter that writes about weddings, and he meets Jane after she gets knocked out trying to catch a bouquet. He gets her a taxi home, and this is when she realizes that he is a total cynic about weddings and doesn’t believe in marriage. She is a hopeless romantic who loves weddings. This is very stereotypical rom-com material, but I like the way this film does it. They don’t make Kevin too much of a cynic, he does spend his life writing about weddings, so he can’t hate them that much. We also learn later that his wife left him for his college roommate. I would be cynical too.
Speaking of being a hopeless romantic, Jane goes to work the next day and we find out that she is in love with her boss, George (Edward Burns). He runs an eco-friendly philanthropic business called Urban Everest. Even though she has been in love with him for years, she doesn’t say or do anything about it. That is very relatable, because I probably wouldn’t either. I would just wait for him to say or do something, too. Jane has to go to a work friend’s engagement party, and her little sister, Tess (Malin Akerman) comes along. Tess has just returned from a trip in Europe after being fired from her job and dumped by her boyfriend. Of course, Tess and George connect at the party and start dating. I don’t know how Jane kept her composure, she’s better than me.
As the film continues, we learn that Tess is lying to George about being a vegetarian, animal lover, and hiker to get him to like her. As a teenager, I probably also lied about things that I liked so someone would like me, but I don’t do it anymore. I don’t know exactly how old Tess is in the film, but she should know better at her age. But I also can’t blame her for doing it, because then I would be a hypocrite. Lying worked out for Tess, though, because George proposes to her soon after they start dating, and Jane sees the whole thing. If I saw my sister getting engaged to the man I’m in love with, I would probably throw up or something. Again, Jane is better than me.
Who is reporting on Tess and George’s wedding? Of course, it’s Kevin. During the wedding planning, Jane and Kevin become closer, and Kevin is more drawn to Jane than to the wedding he is writing about. This is when Jane learns about Kevin’s past and he learns about her love for George. One of the reasons I like them as a couple is that they call each other out on their B.S. Jane gets Kevin to admit that he actually likes weddings, and he tells her that it’s crazy that she’s planning a wedding for a man she’s in love with. Kevin ends up writing an article about Jane and all the times she has been a bridesmaid, instead of the wedding. His boss asks to print it, and he tells her to wait a week because he’s not finished. But to his luck, his boss prints it anyway. Of course this happens after Jane and Kevin start to connect. The article doesn’t paint Jane in a great light, and they end up fighting about it. This plot point is predictable, but I don’t mind that. I like the predictability of rom-coms. It’s comforting to me.
The article is not Jane’s breaking point about the engagement, which is surprising. It would have been mine. Her breaking point is when she learns that Tess chopped-up and restyled their late mother’s wedding dress. Jane had been hoping to wear it at her wedding. After this fiasco, Jane tells her sister that if she doesn’t stop lying to George about who she really is, she’s going to do it herself. This is exactly what she does while making a speech at the rehearsal dinner, and it leads to the engagement being called off.
My favorite part of the film happens after Jane exposes her sister and she runs into Kevin at the rehearsal dinner. She is obviously mad at him, so she doesn’t want to talk to him. But he is stubborn, and wants to get his point across. He admits the reason he came to the engagement party and says, “Do you know the real reason why I came here tonight? Because I knew this was gonna be hard for you. And for the first time in a really long time I wanted to be there for somebody.” He then goes on to say “I think you deserve more than what you’ve settled for. I do. I think you deserve to be taken care of, for a change.” Did I cry the first time I watched this scene? Perhaps. I love this scene because Heigl and Marsden are great actors, and they really sell the characters emotionally. I also love it because it shows how much Kevin understands and cares about Jane. One of the reasons I wasn’t sold on Jane and George getting together is the fact that George doesn’t really see Jane for who she is, but Kevin does.
Shortly after this, Jane and Tess make up. Another reason why I love rom-coms is because of how forgiving they are. Characters have a conflict and make-up in the next 20 minutes or less. If Jane and Tess were real life sisters, it may have taken them longer to fully forgive each other. If I were Tess, I probably wouldn’t have forgiven Jane for ruining my engagement so quickly, even if it was for good reason.
Jane ends up getting a call from George and meeting him at his office before some sort of benefit dinner. During this he comments, “You never say no. Which I love.” I know he didn’t mean that in a creepy way, but it did creep me out while watching. Jane snaps at this and ends up quitting, and also telling George that she was in love with him. After she tells him this, he kisses her, which was kind of crazy to me. Like, I can’t imagine being someone’s boss and kissing one of my former employees. But apparently George is cool with that. They then both admit that they didn’t feel anything during the kiss and go their separate ways. That seemed like an odd choice in the film to me. I feel like Jane could’ve admitted her love for him, and he could’ve just let her down easy and that would be that. The kiss was pointless to me, but it isn’t a choice that totally throws off the movie.
Jane realizes that she is falling in love with Kevin, and she crashes a wedding that he is reporting. The bride at this wedding is the opposite of a bridezilla and lets Jane stand up in front of the wedding and tell Kevin how she feels. They obviously end up together after this and the film flashes forward to them getting married a year later.
It was nice to see James Marsden end up with the woman at the end. He gets tossed to the side in The Notebook and Enchanted. So, good for him. He also made a speech that is a close second to Harry Burns’s New Year’s speech in When Harry Met Sally after the rehearsal dinner. That makes 27 Dresses one of the best rom-coms ever and it was very fun getting to rewatch it for this blog. Rotten Tomatoes giving it a 40% should be considered a crime, probably.
Kate Goranson – Blog Editor & Prose Editor: Kate is a Junior majoring in English with a Literature/Language Concentration. She works at the Writing Center during the week and a banquet hall on the weekends. She has been playing violin since 5th grade and has also picked up guitar and singing. During her free time she likes to go to the movies with her friends, nap with her cat and thrift shop. Some of her favorite authors include Sally Rooney and Madeline Miller.