Hallmark Review: 'Save the Wedding'

Ellie (Chloe Wick) is on the verge of getting married, and her best friend/wedding planner/maid of honor Meg Mooreland (Kasey Landoll) intends to give her the wedding of her dreams. An ambitious perfectionist, Meg is determined to make Ellie's special day the best it can be. But in the run-up to the event, some unexpected curves get thrown Meg's way. First, she gets the opportunity to arrange a celebrity wedding--an elaborate job with the potential to put Meg's career on the map. Then, she finds out who the best man of Ellie's wedding is: Tyler (Travis Burns), her old college nemesis and the best friend of Ellie's groom Sam (Reece Firth). Still, despite the surprises, Meg assures the worried Ellie that all will go well.

Her assurances prove to be badly timed, however, when an overbooking results in the wedding venue needing to be moved elsewhere. The location change, among other incidents, has the already overstressed Ellie questioning if she should even go through with the wedding. Desperate to stop Ellie from making a big mistake, Meg begrudgingly teams up with Tyler to get the wedding--and their best friends' relationship--back on track. But between Ellie's cold feet and Meg's increasingly demanding schedule, the task proves to be a daunting one. Will this wedding end with a happily ever after? Or with the groom being left at the altar?

At the risk of sounding cruel, I would've preferred it if Save the Wedding ended with the latter. Don't be mistaken, it's not because I wish heartbreak on Sam. On the contrary, I thought Sam was the most sympathetic character in the movie. My problem is that his bride-to-be is nothing short of a nightmare and Meg would be doing Sam a favor if she just let Ellie call off the wedding. Ellie's horrible attitude is just one of many reasons Save the Wedding had me wanting to make like a runaway bride not long after the opening credits. The subpar acting and slow-as-a-delivery-van-with-a-flat-tire plot progression had me bracing for impact right out of the gates, which is definitely necessary since main heroine Meg places second below Ellie in the running for Most Annoying Character. To put it simply, when Save the Wedding isn't being as dull as a college economics lecture, it's being as aggravating as a never-ending migraine.

Apart from a few spots where she loosens up, Kasey Landoll's performance as Meg Mooreland is as stiff as a board. Her line deliveries are frequently stilted and her habit of widening her eyes almost every other minute makes Meg look like she's constantly a second away from a nervous breakdown. Even accounting for the stressful wedding prep Meg is dealing with, it's excessive. Landoll isn't helped any by the fact that she's stuck playing such an obnoxious character for her first lead role in a feature-length film. Being the uptight control freak to Tyler's laid-back underachiever, Meg is needlessly rude to Tyler when they first reunite and dismisses him as dumb and unreliable. She continues picking on Tyler even after Ellie asks her to get along with him and, for someone who claims to be Ellie's best friend, Tyler is the first one to notice that things between her and Sam are unusually tense. With Meg already being so easy to dislike, Landoll's stale acting makes it even harder to care about the prickly wedding planner.

That said, Meg Mooreland is a teddy bear in comparison to neurotic bridezilla Ellie. It's ironic how Ellie's father says his wife still sees Ellie as a toddler because Ellie certainly acts like one as she whines every time something doesn't go exactly the way she wants it to. She snaps at Sam for having a less-than-perfect memory of their relationship timeline. She pouts when the wedding venue is changed from a fancy rental property with a spa to her mother-in-law's beautiful mansion. She complains about her mother and mother-in-law being annoying and overbearing respectively, even though such behavior from them is relatively subdued. On top of all this, Ellie inexplicably doesn't want to talk to Sam about how overwhelmed she's feeling. Rather than address Ellie's poor stress management or the lack of communication between the prospective newlyweds, Meg and Tyler opt to instead just recreate Ellie and Sam's best memories together. Any couple that needs to go on an elaborate trip down memory lane just to get married has problems that pepperoni pizza and stargazing can't solve.

The lack of chemistry between Chloe Wick and Reece Firth only makes me more convinced Sam and Ellie would be better off breaking up. The same issue is present between Landoll and Travis Burns, though to a much higher degree considering they're supposed to be the film's main couple. While Burns is much livelier than Landoll and plays a more likable character, Tyler and Meg's Enemies to Lovers storyline never rings true. They spend so much of the movie bickering or working to fix Ellie and Sam's floundering relationship that there's little time to develop their alleged budding attraction. Even when they do get some alone time, Meg and Tyler never seem to form anything deeper than a friendship. This at least makes for a few fleeting moments of cute platonic bonding when the two aren't running around trying to keep their incompatible besties together. Coincidentally, Wick and Firth's individual performances are the same as Landoll and Burns' in terms of quality. Wick is just as rigid as Landoll while Firth takes after Burns when it comes to having more energized acting than his onscreen partner.

SPOILER ALERT

Believe it or not, Meg does become sympathetic during the third act--albeit unintentionally so. In the days leading up to the wedding, Meg spends days supporting and comforting Ellie through her marital doubts, to the point of neglecting a once-in-a-lifetime job opportunity. But apparently, Meg needing to step away for an urgent work call while Ellie is giving a toast during the pre-wedding dinner is enough reason for the movie to label Meg a bad best friend. Tyler gives Meg a self-righteous scolding for getting a phone call from her boss at an inopportune time while Ellie gets upset with Meg for having priorities not related to her, using Meg missing her speech as an excuse not to marry the man she claims to love. It's a frustrating third-act complication that leads to Meg apologizing to Ellie and Tyler (the latter of whom acts like a smug jerk before accepting it) before moving on to the bloated finale where a scavenger hunt magically solves all of Ellie and Sam's relationship problems and Ellie is basically absolved for the part she played in nearly ruining the wedding.

Spoilers Over

Of the supporting cast, three actresses/characters stand out. Meredith Thomas is clearly having a ball as Ellie's overeager mother Debbie while Carrie Schroeder gets to have some fun of her own as Sam's mildly haughty mother Claire. Ashley Lauren Nedd also gets in on the party as side friend Lauren, though her snarky/goofy attitude is much funnier than Lauren's running gag involving her allergies. Regarding Claire, however, there's one thing off about her characterization. For someone Ellie talks about as if she's your typical nagging mother-in-law, Claire never comes across as such. The only time she really hounds Ellie is when she's getting onto her for running late for a bridge club meeting. Otherwise, Claire's more high-strung than shrewish and Ellie comes off as ungrateful for complaining about her wedding having to take place at Claire's gorgeous home.

For a film all about rekindling romance, Save the Wedding is bare of any loving warmth. Neither couple feels like they have any real affection between them, leaving the whole story to feel hollow and meaningless. The atmosphere swings between boring and infuriating and the acting isn't much to speak of. Even the good performers are saddled with characters that don't give them a whole lot to work with. So as I suggested in the subtitle, skip this mess of a movie like it's a 500+ guest wedding being held at the height of the COVID-19 pandemic.

Score: 2 out of 10 fog machines.