Though tried and true romantic comedies area dying breed, Jennifer Lopez and Owen Wilson make a bid to revive the genre (with a musical twist) in Kat Coiro’s “Marry Me,” which hits theaters just in time for Valentine’s Day. Based on Bobby Crosby’s graphic novel of the same name, “Marry Me” follows global music superstar, Kat Valdez (Lopez), who plans to marry her equally famous fiance, Bastian (Colombian singer-songwriter Maluma), in a combination concert/wedding set to be streamed for millions across the globe.
Kat’s fantasy quickly becomes a nightmare, however, when she finds out that Bastian has been cheating on her moments before she goes on stage to exchange vows. In a random leap of faith, the distraught Kat agrees to marry a random fan, Charlie (Owen Wilson), holding a ‘Marry Me’ sign in the crowd. The film follows Kat and Charlie navigating their newfound ‘marriage’ under the pressure of the public eye, as they attempt to get to know each other and see if such a random, unorthodox match could end up sparking genuine romance.
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As far as romantic comedy setups go, “Marry Me” boasts a clever, original, and inherently engaging one—tapping into the teenage fantasy everyone’s once had that their favorite musician might pick them out of the crowd at a concert and whisk them away in a whirlwind romance. But while “Marry Me” subverts some expectations by making down-to-earth math teacher Charlie not a fan of Kat’s, the film still struggles to explore the intrigue and the excitement of its premise, instead ending up a half-baked, surface-level narrative that banks on nonexistent chemistry between Wilson and Lopez.
It’s not as if Lopez is a stranger to the genre, either. With films like “Maid in Manhattan,” “The Wedding Planner,” and “The Back-Up Plan,” she’s practically a rom-com veteran, so her stiffness and phoned-in performance here is particularly baffling. The situation isn’t helped by the fact that Lopez is practically playing herself—a Latina pop star with a global fanbase and a penchant for upbeat sex-infused pop numbers that are heavy on the choreography and theatrical costumes. If nothing else, Lopez should seem more than at home as Kat, but instead, her performance feels as if she’s just going through the motions.
Opposite her uber-famous songstress is the painfully average Charlie, a divorcee and single dad whose primary hobbies are spending time with his spunky daughter, Lou (Chloe Coleman), taking care of his dog, and overschooling the mathletes team of the school he works at. He’s dragged to Kat’s concert by his best friend/coworker, Parker (Sarah Silverman), where he finds himself caught up in the tide of Kat and Bastian’s martial dilemma. As far as romantic leading men go, Wilson certainly fits the bill for an ‘average joe’ type to play in contrast to JLo’s statuesque Kat, but his performance leaves much to be desired—again, baffling, because like Lopez, he has more than enough experience in the genre, not to mention proven comedic chops.
Where Lopez’s Kat is a walking fortune cookie that spews generic life advice in some sort of bizarre interpretation of who JLo might be in real life, Wilson’s Charlie is just simply… there, most of the time. He doesn’t have a particularly active role in the first act—from the moment the concert starts to the second he’s dropped off after, all he does is stand and gawk with a confused, almost uninterested expression on his face.
The film attempts to set him up as the complimentary opposite to the peppy, go-go-go Kat, but in working so hard to make them an ‘opposites attract’ pair, the film goes a tad too far and paints Charlie as a boring, social media-hating nihilist whose most interesting quality is that he’s somewhat of a fan of Broadway musicals. Charlie is strangely lacking in any kind of charm (which is surprising, considering it’s a quality Wilson boasts in spades), and when paired with Kat, the two always seem to be talking at each other and not with each other.
Their eventual closeness and move towards romance is told almost entirely via montages, shoehorned anecdotes about their respective childhoods, and plant/payoff details that have so little time in between the setup and the reveal that most of the moments feel incredibly manufactured and disingenuous—like the kind of thing Kat’s PR team would’ve come up with, and not two people actually falling in love.
Granted, the entire cast isn’t a lost cause—Maluma is appropriately douche-y as Kat’s ex Bastian, and John Bradley lends a remarkable amount of emotion to the film as Kat’s manager Collin—a role that doesn’t seem like much, but that Bradley bears with a refreshing earnestness that makes his performance a stand-out. Still, even with a handful of toe-tapping songs written by Maluma and JLo specifically for the film “Marry Me” is an off-tune rom-com that should make most viewers think twice about saying “I do.” [C-]
“Marry Me” arrives in theaters and on Peacock on February 11.