27 Dresses

27 Dresses
Theatrical release poster
Directed by	Anne Fletcher
Produced by	Gary Barber Roger Birnbaum Jonathan Glickman
Written by	Aline Brosh McKenna
Starring	Katherine Heigl James Marsden Malin Åkerman Edward Burns Judy Greer Maulik Pancholy
Music by	Randy Edelman
Cinematography	Peter James
Editing by	Priscilla Nedd-Friendly
Studio	Spyglass Entertainment
Distributed by	20th Century Fox
Release date(s)	Australia: January 10, 2008 United States: January 18, 2008 (2008-01-18)
Running time	111 minutes
Country	United States
Language	English
Budget	$30 million
Box office	$160,259,319

27 Dresses is a 2008 romantic comedy film directed by Anne Fletcher and written by Aline Brosh McKenna. The film stars Katherine Heigl and James Marsden. The film was released January 10, 2008 in Australia and opened in the United States on January 18.

Plot

Jane Nichols (Katherine Heigl) has been a bridesmaid for twenty-seven weddings. One night when she is attending two weddings almost simultaneously, she meets Kevin Doyle (James Marsden), who helps her home but disgusts her with his cynical views of marriage. He finds her day planner which she'd forgotten in the cab they shared. Meanwhile, Jane's sister Tess (Malin Åkerman) falls in love with Jane's boss George (Edward Burns). Tess pretends to like the same things that George does so that she can get him to like her. Despite loving George herself, Jane does not reveal the truth and the courtship progresses rapidly. Soon the new couple announce that they intend to marry in only three weeks.

The reporter who agrees to cover their wedding for the society page turns out to be Kevin, who writes wedding announcements under a pseudonym. Having looked at the contents of Jane's planner before returning it, he then decides to use the contents as material for a piece on the "perennial bridesmaid" and hopefully be promoted to writing investigative pieces about "real" news.

Jane is unaware of Kevin's intentions, and when he asks to interview her for his column on Tess, gets her to try on all 27 bridesmaids dresses in her closet. He takes pictures of her in all of them and sends them with the completed article to his boss. As they get to know each other because of Tess's wedding, Kevin begins to think that Jane is not as one-dimensional as he thought, and asks his editor to hold his article so he can "fix" it.

His editor runs the article anyway on the front page of the Commitments section, and Jane is furious at him. Tess then gets angry at Jane for giving Kevin material about her, whom he describes as a bridezilla. The fight escalates when Jane realizes that Tess destroyed their late mother's wedding dress to make her own gown.

Despite the fight, Tess still asks Jane to make a slideshow to show at her engagement party. Jane decides that George should know the truth about Tess and instead runs pictures of Tess with other men, eating ribs, and holding a cat by the tail - in short, doing all the things she had told George that she never did. After Pedro, the young Hispanic child that George mentors, tells the crowd that Tess had him cleaning George's apartment for money, George breaks off the engagement.

Later at work, George tells Jane that he appreciates her because she never says no. Remembering that Kevin once said the same thing as a criticism, Jane quits and admits she only stayed at the job because she was in love with George. She discovers after an experimental kiss that she no longer loves him and decides to meet Kevin. She announces in front of the entire crowd at a wedding that he is covering that she is in love with him.

One year later at Jane and Kevin's wedding, George and Tess meet again. All 27 brides she helped, as well as Tess and Casey, her best friend, are her bridesmaids.

Cast

• Katherine Heigl as Jane Nichols
• James Marsden as Malcolm Kevin Doyle
• Malin Åkerman as Tess Nichols
• Edward Burns as George
• Judy Greer as Casey
• Melora Hardin as Maureen
• Michael Ziegfeld as Khaleel
• Brian Kerwin as Hal Nichols
• Maulik Pancholy as Trent
• David Castro as Pedro
• Peyton Roi List as Young Jane Nichols
• Krysten Ritter as Gina

Production

Filming began on May 10, 2007. Portions of the film were supposed to take place in Rhinebeck, New York but were filmed in several locations in the state of Rhode Island.

Reception

Star Katherine Heigl at the film's premiere in Westwood

Critical response

27 Dresses received generally mixed reviews from critics. The review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes reported that 40% of critics gave the film positive reviews, based on 142 reviews with the comment being "The filmmakers perfectly follow the well-worn romantic comedy formula, rendering 27 Dresses clichéd and mostly forgettable."^[1] Metacritic reported the film had an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.^[2]

Box office

The film opened at #2 at the North American box office making $23 million USD in its opening weekend behind Cloverfield. As of April 18, 2009, 27 Dresses had grossed $76,808,654 in North America, and $83,450,665 overseas, for a total worldwide gross of $160,259,319.^[3] According to BoxOfficeGuru.com, "The audience for the $30M-budgeted 27 Dresses was overwhelmingly female. Studio research showed that 75% of the crowd consisted of women, but the audience was evenly split between those over and under 25."^[4]

Home media

The Blu-ray Disc and DVD was released on April 29, 2008 in the United States and July 29 in the United Kingdom.

References

External links

• Official website
• 27 Dresses at the Internet Movie Database
• 27 Dresses at Rotten Tomatoes
• 27 Dresses at Metacritic
• 27 Dresses at Box Office Mojo
• 27 Dresses at AllRovi

• "DVD Talk discusses Katherine Heigl's performance in 27 Dresses". http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=32044.