The unlikely marriage of an international pop star and math teacher starts a new rom-com that stays true to its cliche roots. “Marry Me” released on Feb. 11 fails to beat out “Death on the Nile,” released on the same day, at the box office.
The film stars Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson yet fails to execute its simple goal: to produce a classic romantic comedy. Though most rom-coms are filled with unlikely fairytale scenarios, this movie takes it to the extreme. Owen Wilson’s character Charlie Gilbert is a single father who went through a tough divorce. On a whim, he goes to a concert with his good friend Parker (Sarah Silverman) and his daughter Lou (Chloe Coleman). At the concert, he holds Parker’s sign that says “Marry Me” the name of the song that Kat Valdez (Jennifer Lopez) and Bastian (Maluma) wrote together and are planning to sing before they get married on live television. Shortly before going on for the final set, Kat finds out Bastian cheated on her, but she still goes on stage and decides to say yes to Charlie’s apparent marriage proposal. The two get married, and then make a plan to continue their relationship for public relations purposes. Over time, they fall in love and of course, the movie ends with a grand gesture that Kat makes to win Charlie back.
Jennifer Lopez produced this movie as well as starred in it; however, the big-name casting seemed to be an attempt to bail out a poorly written movie. Going into rom-coms, people expect cheesy plot lines but at the end of the day, the foundational plot for the movies are overdone. “Marry Me” could have been developed into something much more creative, but instead it felt like it was lazily written.
While Lopez and Wilson are great actors, there was not nearly enough chemistry between the two. Because of this, much of their more important scenes together seemed forced and almost awkward. Knowing the potential the movie had made watching these scenes even more frustrating.
One highlight of the movie was seeing Kat and Charlie figure out how to interact with his daughter Lou. It was very sweet to see the way that someone Lou looks up to could help her to overcome her stage fright and the way that Charlie expressed his pride in his daughter even after her failure added an important heartfelt moment.
The supporting cast members such as Maluma, Sarah Silverman and John Bradley played their roles very well providing some comedic relief as well as a strong character to root against. Without their roles in the movie, it would have just been straight-up boring for people to watch.
Overall, “Marry Me” had potential but ultimately missed the mark. It would be a decent movie to watch in the background, but carving out time to watch it is not worth it.
Rating: C-
