THE WEDDING DATE

Clare Kilner (How to Deal) directs this romantic comedy in which Debra Messing hires a male escort (Dermot Mulroney) to be her date at her sister's London wedding. Presumably today's gorgeous take-charge woman can't attend such functions alone or with a buddy -- not if her ex-fiance will be present. So we get My Best Friend's Wedding crossed with Four Weddings and a Funeral, under the guidance of Pretty Woman -- or in this case, Pretty Gigolo. Messing is cute as a bug, but Mulroney feels like dead weight (this guy rents for $6,000?). The script does neither actor any favors, except that it wraps up this utterly predictable trifle in a tidy 90 minutes.