On the day of her wedding to Heck (Matthew Goode) Rachel (Piper Perabo) meets Luce (Lena Headey) the florist hired for her wedding. Rachel feels an instant connection to Luce and something more. Finding out later that Luce is gay makes Rachel weigh instant attraction and chemistry against her marriage, friendship and commitment to her husband.
Truthfully we’ve already seen the “you can’t help who you fall in love with” film done many times and just recently with a gay slant (Brokeback Mountain). This film doesn’t really add anything new to the equation and the tone and pace of the movie is uneven as hell. It has an annoyingly cute kid smarter than her years (Sharon Horgan). And the film obnoxiously puts the title in play by playing The Turtles “Happy Together” during the climax of the film. Yet given those problems I’m still recommending it because somehow the film still manages to entertain.
The film is just unapologetically romantic and doesn’t take the easy way out of making its characters stereotypes. It would have been much easier to make Heck a bad guy, but making him loving and understanding makes the decision of Rachel actually mean something. I also like the dynamic of the generational relationships between Luce and her mother (Sue Johnston), and the awkwardness between Heck and his stepfather (Head).
My main reason for wanting to se the film was the performances of two cast members. I’ve love Piper Perabo since I saw her years ago in The Adventures of Rocky & Bullwinkle. She’s funny, sexy, sweet, and has an expressive face that let’s the audience in on what’s happening to her and she does a surprisingly good job with an English accent in the film. And then there’s Anthony Head who plays the father of Rachel. I love the guy; he’s playing the dimwitted drunken father figure and either Head is actually stoned out of his mind during the entire filming or he’s an even better actor than I thought. This is a performance Buffy fans shouldn’t miss!
It’s not a great film and has more than a couple slow spots in the script but its heart is in the right place and the performances and the charm of the story make it a film worth checking out. Head’s odd performance and Perabo’s sweet one are definitely worth a look along with good supporting performances by Darren Boyd as Heck’s womanizing best friend, Headey’s earthy Luce, and Celia Imrie as Rachel’s ball-busting mother. Not the best romantic comedy you’ll see this year but it might be one of the more memorable ones.
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