My Phase I wedding era ended years ago. My college friends have long since married so that generation of weddings has elapsed. I anxiously await Phase II when I’ll show up to weddings because I have to be there; I’m family. “Aw, dad, do we have to invite Uncle Frog? He’s so weird.” Yes. Yes, you do.
Two people who have not advanced past Phase I are Alice (Maya Erskine) and Ben (Jack Quaid – you poor, poor man. Imagine having the beautiful parents of Dennis Quaid and Meg Ryan, and yet seeming to favor Uncle Randy.) These folks partake of a wedding every weekend, it seems, and -despite being college acquaintances- never seem to have the same people showing up at all these weddings. This is good, in a way, because the more friend groups you have, the more weddings you get invited to … however, neither Alice nor Ben is attached. So the two have a pact to be each other’s Plus One – the reliable wingperson to come to weddings and promote romantic trysts. And abject failure at trysting can lead to finding romantic comfort with each other, right? Oh, we’re gonna pretend that isn’t a thing, huh? Ok. I give it an act-and-a-half, two max.
These two are, of course, not romantically interested in each other at all. No way. Just friends. Yes, this plot will only be a mystery to folks who have never before partaken of a romantic movie.
Ben comes across as a younger Adam Scott, likable-yet-harmless and constantly one ill-placed comment away from a night alone. Alice is a revival of Maya’s silly/anxious sexually-aware-sexually-confused persona from “PEN15.” It works much better here because, and I cannot stress this enough, she’s not playing a 13-year-old. Catch exactly one episode of “PEN15” and you’ll see what I mean.
So this is a breezy little nothing of a film. As I have said many times, romances work best when you can see yourself falling in love with either lead. Such is certainly the case here, at least on a low level; I like both Ben and Alice and cringe when they inevitably make poor choices. The collage of weddings is fun, too, although in the fervor to promote couplehood, I think the writer/director combo missed out on an opportunity to destroy modern wedding conventions. I would have been in tears if presented a veritable icebox of cold-footed grooms or a Tokyo of bridezillas. An exploration of the debt incurred by parties who attend a dozen or more weddings a year might have made more than 30 seconds of conversation – I mean, exactly where are educated twentysomethings getting disposable income these days?
Plus One instead was far more interested in the mechanics of wedding attendance for singles. It’s cute and perhaps insightful along these lines – although not nearly so as, say, Wedding Crashers. But if you like the people falling in love, it doesn’t really matter what you learn from a film, only that you remember it. Alas, this one is fading.
♪Back from the mass
Fit to be re-tied
Breathing fire
Bridesmaids, run and hide!
Bridezilla!
Bridezilla!
Bridezilla!
She is spoooooooky♫
Not Rated, 98 Minutes
Director: Jeff Chan, Andrew Rhymer
Writer: Jeff Chan, Andrew Rhymer
Genre: Not-so-wedding crashers
Type of being most likely to enjoy this film: Twentysomethings in Phase I
Type of being least likely to enjoy this film: People relying on twentysomethings in Phase I getting their lives together
♪ Parody Inspired by “Godzilla Cartoon Intro”
