Take one perfect wedding, a pair of wildly dysfunctional in-laws, relationship meltdown and a liberal sprinkling of expletives and what have you got? All the ingredients for a romantic comedy from the Richard Curtis school of filmmaking...
First-time writer/director Ol Parker has swallowed the Curtis formula wholesale with his story of new bride Rachel (Piper Perabo), who falls in love with someone else. Parker's one stab at originality is that the 'someone else' is another woman (Lena Headey), but the twist just seems like a conceit to liven up a Brit rom-com-by-numbers.
If the central romance fails to catch light, at least the supporting characters, notably Anthony Head as Rachel's befuddled dad and Darren Boyd as a serial cad, give us a few much-needed laughs. The fact you start to get wistful about Hugh and co, though, says it all.
