27 Dresses

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27 Dresses
A woman standing against a white background in long white dress, which is patterned with lines black text, and the title "27 Dresses" in large splash of pink text
Theatrical release poster
Directed byAnne Fletcher
Written byAline Brosh McKenna
Produced byGary Barber
Roger Birnbaum
Jonathan Glickman
Starring
CinematographyPeter James
Edited byPriscilla Nedd-Friendly
Music byRandy Edelman
Production
companies
Distributed by20th Century Fox
Release dates
  • January 10, 2008 (2008-01-10) (Australia)
  • January 18, 2008 (2008-01-18) (United States)
Running time
111 minutes
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$30 million[1]
Box office$162.7 million[2]

27 Dresses is a 2008 American 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 on January 10, 2008, in Australia and opened in the United States on January 18.

Plot[]

Jane Nichols has been a bridesmaid for twenty-seven weddings. One night when she is attending two weddings almost simultaneously, she meets Kevin Doyle, 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 falls in love with Jane's boss George. 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 and Jane becomes the wedding planner.

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.

When Kevin finds out that Jane is getting her sister's marriage fixed with the man she loves, he rebukes her. Jane agrees to one drink with Kevin and ends up getting drunk. Kevin and Jane kiss and make love in the car. Kevin's editor runs the article anyway on the front page of the Commitments section. When Jane comes to know about it, the next morning, Jane feels betrayed and 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, the last straw on Tess' string of lies to George and demands on Jane.

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 during her past years, 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 Jane and Kevin are now getting married. George and Tess meet in their wedding again, and a hope for a second chance shows. All 27 brides Jane helped, as well as Tess and Casey, her best friend, are her bridesmaids, and they are wearing the dresses she once wore as their bridesmaid.

Cast[]

Production[]

Principal photography began on May 10, 2007. The film was primarily shot in the state of Rhode Island. Locations included Rosecliff and Marble House mansions, a beach in Charlestown, East Greenwich, and Providence. Filming also took place during two weeks in New York City.[3]

Catherine Marie Thomas was in charge of Costume design. Director Anne Fletcher worked told her she wanted "big, ugly and bright -- every color palette, every style". Thomas came up with fifty potential dresses and with Fletcher decided which twenty seven would be in the film.[4] Several of the dresses were made by designer .[5]

Release[]

Heigl in a grey and silver dress, behind her several woman wearing the same white dress from the film poster
Katherine Heigl at the film's premiere in Westwood, Los Angeles

Box office[]

The film opened at number two at the North American box office, earning US$23 million in its opening weekend behind Cloverfield. 27 Dresses grossed $76.8 million in North America, and $85.8 million in international markets, for a total worldwide gross of $162.6 million.[2]

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 persons over and under 25."[6]

Critical response[]

On Rotten Tomatoes 41% of critics gave the film positive reviews based on 154 reviews, with an average rating of 5/10. The website's critics consensus reads, "The filmmakers perfectly follow the well-worn romantic comedy formula, rendering 27 Dresses clichéd and mostly forgettable."[7] On Metacritic the film had an average score of 47 out of 100, based on 31 reviews.[8] Audiences polled by CinemaScore gave the film an average grade of "B+" on an A+ to F scale.[9]

Cath Clarke of The Guardian said that despite Heigl's "knack for light comedy, and an easy good grace," she felt the script "fails to find satire on the can't-miss territory of the Manhattan wedding circuit", saying "What a maddening waste of Katherine Heigl this insipid romantic comedy is."[10] Peter Howell from the Toronto Star said the film "shamelessly trades in the hoariest of chick-flick clichés" and criticized screenwriter Aline Brosh McKenna for filling the script with "cheap gags" instead of the "savage wit and genuine insight into the shallowness of modern life" she had in The Devil Wears Prada.[11]

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.

Soundtrack[]

The film features a score written by Randy Edelman along with numerous songs from other artists. These songs do not appear on the soundtrack CD, which includes only the Edelman score.

References[]

  1. ^ "27 Dresses (2008) - Financial Information". The Numbers.
  2. ^ a b "27 Dresses". Box Office Mojo.
  3. ^ "Film > 27 Dresses – Production Notes". Kheigl.com. Archived from the original on 2011-11-01. Retrieved March 1, 2022.
  4. ^ ""27 Dresses" a costume designer's dream". Reuters. 10 January 2008.
  5. ^ "DeBora Rachelle Designer". DeBora Rachelle. Archived from the original on 2010-10-31.
  6. ^ Gitesh Pandya. "Weekend Box Office (January 18 - 21, 2008)".
  7. ^ "27 Dresses". Rotten Tomatoes. Archived from the original on 17 January 2008. Retrieved March 3, 2022.
  8. ^ "27 Dresses (2008): Reviews". Metacritic. Archived from the original on 18 January 2008. Retrieved 2008-01-18.
  9. ^ Joshua Rich (January 23, 2008). "Cloverfield sets box office records". Entertainment Weekly. Its crowd (which was a whopping 87 percent female) was doubly charmed, granting the romantic comedy a respectable B+ CinemaScore mark.
  10. ^ Clarke, Cath (March 28, 2008). "27 Dresses". The Guardian. London: Guardian Media Group. Retrieved April 16, 2018.
  11. ^ Howell, Peter (January 18, 2008). "'27 Dresses': Comedy left at the altar". Toronto Star. Torstar Media Group. Retrieved April 16, 2020.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: url-status (link)

External links[]

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