Rent Save the Date (2012)

Save the Date review by George Hooper - Cinema Paradiso

I know this is an odd way to start a review but here goes.I don’t presume to understand women at all, if anything other people confuse me, much like they do to others. However I can spot a film trying too hard to get into a woman’s mind. It’s films like Save the Date that presume to know women yet was written by a group of men.

Directed by Michael Mohan, Save the Date tells the story of sisters Sarah (Lizzy Caplan) and Beth (Allison Brie). With Beth’s wedding to Andrew (Martin Starr) coming up Sarah is struggling with her relationship with Kevin (Geoffrey Arend) and things finally come to a head when she meets shy guy Jonathan (Mark Webber).

There is no sugar coating it when it comes to relationship dramas like Save the Date. The film is both tone deaf and sanctimonious, the characters have no life to them or they instill intense hatred right from the get go. The lack of depth proves frustrating as the film plays its hand of tired tropes and unfortunate cliches (including the likes of a missing cat) to absolutely no avail.

The film’s conclusion, a sort of female empowerment for the Girls generation cannot be any less disturbing and regressive. Caplan works well with the material and Starr proves a reliable support but Brie makes Beth downright loathsome in a way that by the end you really don’t care about her.

All in all, Save the Date is everything that I cannot stand about movies, the kind of film that professes its knowledge of the human psyche only to make its characters do pointless things in search of purpose instead of actually figuring out a story for them to experience. It’s a waste of good actors at its best and a sexist and derivative mess at its worst