Heigl plays Jane Nichols. When we first meet Jane, she’s juggling two weddings atonce, two weddings on different sides of NYC, and where’s she’s part of thewedding party in both of them. Shespends the evening zipping back and forth between the two by cab, changingbetween equally hideous bridesmaids’ dresses. Why does she do it? Because both brides are her friends, and because she’s a weddingaddict. That’s where the titlecomes from – Jane has been the bridesmaid 27 times, and she’s got the dressesto prove it.
Jane’s machinations catch the eye of journalist Kevin Doyle(Marsden), who’s at one of the weddings to cover it for his paper. He writes a weekly column going behindthe scenes at a wedding, and Jane’s a big fan, at least, she’s a big fan of hiswriting. Him, she’s not so sureabout. He finds her planner and fromit learns about her weddings-all-the-time lifestyle and starts turning up inplaces she’d rather not see him.
What we also quickly learn about Jane is that she’s in lovewith her boss, George (played by Edward Burns). She’s his assistant at the outdoors empire he founded, andshe’s been crazy about him forever. In time-honored boss fashion, he appreciates her work, but not muchelse.
Then Jane’s sister, Tess (Malin Akerman), shows up. She’s blonder, more flamboyant,seemingly more adventurous, definitely more aggressive, and Edward falls forher hard. All Jane can do iswatch. Watch her sistermislead/lie to Edward about things like loving animals (she doesn’t), being avegetarian (she isn’t), and the like. But Jane would never tell, and suddenly Edward and Tess are engaged, andit’s Jane’s job to help plan a wedding in the space of just a few weeks.
Kevin is still hanging around, and decides that Tess andEdward’s wedding would be a great subject for his column. He also convinces his editor to let himwrite a story about bridesmaid Jane, which leads to one of the mostentertaining scenes in the film, when Jane models every bridesmaid’s dress sheowns for him, one by one, complete with backstories.
Somewhere along the way, Kevin decides Jane’s not such agreat story after all, but it’s too late. The story runs, under the headline “Always, Always, Always theBridesmaid,” complete with a photo of Jane looking very introspective, and thena page of photos with most of those bridesmaid’s dresses. Unfortunately, the morning it runs is afterthe night that Jane and Kevin spent together in a car, after a wild night in abar up in the burbs north of the city. Might have been the start of something, until Jane sees the story andaccuses Kevin of spying on her.
So, Jane’s loaded for bear already, and then she finds outabout one other betrayal by Tess, and it’s the last straw. Jane gives Tess her comeuppance, whichcancels the wedding, which leads to a tete-a-tete between Jane and Edward,which leads to Jane making a discovery about her true feelings, and there yougo.
Heigl really is adorable throughout, and while Jane’s alittle too good early on, when she lets her manners slip you can easily believethat’s the real Jane. And Marsdenis just endearing, even when Kevin’s at his most obnoxious. Burns is fine, and Akerman is bothpretty and grating as Tess. Thereal scene stealer once you get past Heigl and Marsden is Judy Greer, playingJane’s best friend, Casey. Ifyou’ve seen Greer in other roles, you know how well she does this stuff. Casey’s every bit as bad and jaded asJane is good and optimistic, and when Casey calls Jane on her behavior, youknow things are bad!
There are a bunch of special features, including amaking-of, a featurette focused on just where all those dresses came from, andanother talking about how all the sets came to life. Another featurette on the annual “Running of the Brides,”Filene’s Basement’s big sale on wedding dresses, doesn’t have anything to dodirectly with the movie, but it’s fun to watch. There are also three deleted scenes, one of which willlikely make you hate Tess instead of just disliking her, so be warned.
Language options are English and Spanish, both in Dolby, andthe same options on subtitles. Oh,and the soundtrack on this one’s a lot of fun, especially if you’re intoskewering song lyrics. (Who knew “Bennie and the Jets” was such fertileground?)
27 Dresses ispredictable, but it’s also thoroughly entertaining. Even if you’ve got a few bridesmaid’s dresses stuffed in theback of your closet, chances are you’ve got nowhere near as many as Jane andthat yours are nowhere near as hideous. And, there’s nothing wrong with spending an evening watching two verycute people being cute together.
