Made of Honor owes much to When Harry Met Sally. A man and a woman, friends for years after an uncomfortable and confrontational meet, share their dating experiences, support one another emotionally, offer advice, bond, ultimately to realize that the loves of their lives were hiding right under their noses. But the wit a liveliness of screenwriter Nora Ephron and director Rob Reiner have been replaced by a more predictable story with more obvious humor by screenwriters Adam Sztykiel, Deborah Kaplan, and Harry Elfont, and directed by Paul Weiland (who, coincidentally, worked with Billy Crystal on City Slickers 2). Fortunately, Weiland has assembled a charming cast that manages to elevate the material.

Tom (Patrick Dempsey) has been a hound since his college days, someone who pursues emotionless sex with great looking women. The film, in fact, begins on a college costume party night. Tom is prowling in a Bill Clinton mask, greeting with great enthusiasm various Monicas, dressed in appropriately blue dresses he hopes to stain. He lets himself into a dorm room, using a key a girl has left on the doorframe and slips into bed. Unfortunately, the girl under the covers is the roommate, Hannah (Michelle Monaghan), who promptly kicks him out of bed and gives him a tongue lashing that’s quite the opposite of the type he’d been hoping for.

Flash forward ten years. We’re now in Manhattan on a Sunday morning. Tom is still the great lover, boinking woman and applying a time-tested set of personal rules to avoid commitment. As he rolls out of bed, his latest conquest asks if they can see each other that night; he says, “I don’t do back-to-backs. Two nights in a row; I don’t do that.” He has plenty of free time on his hands to pursue women; he’s become independently wealthy, earning a dime for every insulated paper-cup sleeve sold worldwide.

It’s not much of a surprise when Tom meets Hannah for what we learn is their weekly Sunday morning get together. They have a deep and strictly platonic friendship. She’s now the director of acquisitions at the Metropolitan Museum of Art and she’s an active restorationist as well. They can finish each other’s sentences, predict accurately what the other will order at a restaurant, know each other’s histories, likes, and dislikes… they are, in fact, best friends. But we sense that Hannah’s feelings run deeper. She’s a patient woman who seems to have been waiting for years for Tom to satiate his lust and come to his emotional senses. Alas, he’s oblivious and uses her as his date of convenience whenever he doesn’t want to get one of his sexual conquests’ hopes up. Such an occasion is his father’s next marriage.

Tom’s inability to sustain a lasting loving relationship seems to be genetic. Tom’s very affluent father, Tom, Sr. (Sydney Pollack in his last role - he shall be missed, both as an actor and as a director) is about to be married for the sixth or seventh time (he’s not at all sure, having lost count). Very young, sexy, gold-diggers tend to be his brides, and his marriages have become more of a business arrangement than a loving commitment. Even as he stands in the church waiting for his bride on their wedding day, his attorney and hers are making last minute refinements to the ironclad prenuptial agreement, right down to the frequency and types of sex he expects.

Fate (and the screenwriters) are about to throw Tom a curve. Hannah must travel to Scotland for an extensive, six-week acquisition field trip for the museum. Tom is, at first, simply a little disoriented in Sunday mornings, but as her absence weighs heavily on him, he suddenly has an epiphany. He’s in love. With Hannah. And he must act as soon as she returns. Alas, she has a strapping Scot in tow when she deplanes at JFK. It’s Colin (Kevin McKidd), a rich aristocrat who galloped on horseback to her rescue when she became stranded one night in her car surrounded by stubborn sheep. They’re engaged. Tom’s crestfallen.

To add insult to injury, Hannah asks him to be her maid of honor. He is, after all, her best friend. This does not sit well with Melissa (Busy Philipps), Hannah’s best childhood friend, who’s been looking forward to being her maid of honor for years. And it doesn’t help that she had slept with Tom and he, as he always does, then blew her off. Melissa will become both a provocateur and a saboteur. Tom agrees to be the maid of honor, hoping that he can subtly dissuade Hannah and win her back. (That decision provokes a tiresome running gag that he must be gay.)

It’s at this point that When Harry Meets Sally transforms into My Best Friend’s Wedding. The third act is spent in the beautiful Scottish highlands at one of the four family castles where the couple is to be married. Colin demonstrates repeatedly that he’s the better man in every way (he even has the outstanding equipment that really satisfies a woman, something Tom and his basketball buddies learn in a gym club shower earlier in New York). Tom seems destined for defeat. How will he recover?

Patrick Dempsey is sufficiently believable as a man who can charm the pants off of any women. But it strains credulity to expect the bright, beautiful Hannah to keep herself available for so many years, waiting for her best friend to feel a more significant emotional connection. The screenwriters had to trot out the tried and true plot device of loss provoking an awakening of emotion. Michelle Monaghan is delightful and very appealing; she brings sweetness to the film, playing a woman that the viewer likes and hopes will find happiness. This fluffy bit of romantic comedy may be insubstantial, but it’s a pleasant enough diversion.

The Video: How Does The Disc Look?

The film’s theatrical aspect ratio of 2.40:1 is presented in a great looking high definition transfer compressed with the AVC video CODEC. I was particularly impressed with the look of the magnificent Scottish countryside with a castle on the lake (loch?). The foliage is dense with finely grained textures. Small object detail is admirable as well; a very long shot of Tom and Hannah walking along a bit of land jutting into the water reveals silhouettes of limbs and hands, almost impossibly small. Color rendition is excellent, from natural flesh tones to the multi-hued tartans. Black levels are satisfyingly dark; shadow detail is rather nice; and, there is no crush on either end of the video dynamic range. A romantic comedy doesn’t cry out for a spectacular presentation, but this sharp transfer is very film-like.

The Audio: How Does The Disc Sound?

The lossless Dolby TrueHD 5.1 track is better than you’d expect from the genre. The spoken word, the most critical element of the mix, comes across distortion-free throughout. Scottish brogues won’t even get in the way of intelligibility. The pleasant orchestral score by Rupert Gregson-Williams is presented with great fidelity across a broad soundstage made wider by leaks into the surrounds. Exceptionally deep bass is neither present nor missed. Even the surround channels are exercised with environmental sounds like traffic and rain. Sound effects are fine, simply serving the onscreen action.

The alternate language tracks are in French and Portuguese, both in TrueHD 5.1, and Spanish and Korean in Dolby Digital 5.1.The optional subtitles are in English SDH, English, French, Spanish, Portuguese, Traditional Chinese, Simplified Chinese, Thai, Korean, Hindi, and Indonesian.

The Supplements: What Goodies Are There?

Let’s begin with the Save the Date: The Making of Made of Honor featurette (12:54, 1.78:1, 1080p). This is the typical blend of EPK, behind the scenes interactions among the actors and the director, and a discussion of the origins and evolution of the show. Expect all the usual topics. Those who enjoy the film will likely enjoy the supplement.

The Three Weddings and a Rooftop featurette (6:49, 1.78:1, 1080p) examines the production and set design for the film’s three nuptials. Details would represent spoilers so I’ll only say that the design and artistic intentions are explained in detail and we’re made to understand all the effort that was invested in each. This is actually more interesting than it reads.

There are two deleted scenes: Locker Room (0:30); and, Highland Games (2:36). Each extends sequences found in the film without enhancing our understanding of the characters or advancing the story, hence the cuts. They are shown in messy standard definition anamorphic video that looks upconverted.

The previews section includes HD trailers for: Prom Night; Married Life; You Don’t Mess With Zohan; This Christmas; 21; Across the Universe; The Holiday; The Jane Austen Book Club; 50 First Dates; Mona Lisa Smile; My Best Friend’s Wedding; Maid in Manhattan; and, Catch & Release.

You’ll find the usual Bookmarks feature, BD Live supplements, and a feature length commentary by director Paul Weiland.

The 10-minute film is organized into sixteen chapters.

Final Thoughts

Light, fluffy, inconsequential, amusing, and utterly forgettable, the film does have its charms, thanks to the presence of a very appealing Michelle Monaghan. You’ll find a fine presentation and a few respectable supplements. The disc makes a great date movie.


Here’s a note about the apparent duplicate Buy Guide.  Our I.T. people are still hard at work on a large project and have not yet had the time to modify the underlying site database formatting code to accommodate the new 0-to-10 rating scales.  So until they do, for HD on disc, I’ll insert this note and a Buy Guide at the end of the review text and leave the conventional 0-to-5 Buy Guide blank.