Directed By:
Kat Coiro
Written By:
Harper Dill, Bobby Crosby, John Rogers
Starring:
John Bradley, Jennifer Lopez, Utkarsh Ambudkar
Genre:
Comedy, Musical, Romance
Rated: PG-13 for some language and suggestive material.
All media used courtesy of Columbia Pictures, Media Rights Capital (MRC), Universal Pictures
Happy Valentines Day! Well, early Valentines Day, because we are going to talk about a love story. No, not necessarily a good one, but one nonetheless. Kat Valdez (Jennifer Lopez) and Bastian (Maluma) are one of the most popular pop singer couples in the world. They both love to perform, and decide to perform their marriage in front of a stadium crowd and introduce their new single “Marry Me”. But after learning mid performance that Bastian cheated on Kat, she decided to pick someone from the crowd to marry instead. Who does she pick? Well, divorced high-school math teacher Charlie Gilbert (Owen Wilson)of course! The two are now in a spotlight relationship that they don’t really want, but will being together and learning more about each other cause a new romance to blossom for both of them?
It’s just… c’mon. I really wanted to come into this neutral, and hoping for the best with the actors, and even if the story doesn’t live up to it, perhaps the chemistry would win out. It’s already quite a stretch to see how this scenario plays out for the better, let alone in a way that makes sense. But the aggressive in your face iPhone overlays, pedestrian tropes that offer nothing new to the genre, and batshit thought process makes me wonder if J-Lo would be better off making Gigli 2 with Ben Affleck.
I feel most badly for my boy John Bradely, who has now batted 0-2 this year for movies with last weeks Moonfall and now here. I truly hope he gets more opportunities because regardless of the quality of these films, his performance shines through still. From IMDB, the genre is stated as a ‘musical’, but that’s quite a stretch. Musicals are immersive and you know when you’re in one. The music is only ever done on a stage, or in a studio, and only the actual singers performing on screen are the ones singing. It’s just watching performances rather than the world being a musical world.
Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson have the same chemistry that John Mulaney and Cardi B had on Fallon. Oh, and Fallon must have been paid a handsome sum for the constant callback to his show reporting on Kates failed relationship. The relationship is manufactured in the story, but even when you try to move past that there’s just a disconnect for me that made their relationship feel so plutonic.
Overall, Marry Me just doesn’t work. I won’t consider this my least favorite film of the year, but it may end up in my bottom ten come December, if I can remember it.
