A film review by Mark O'Hara Copyright © 1999 Movie-Page

A lot's been said about the chemistry between Julia Roberts and Richard Gere, the actors reunited a decade after their hit Pretty Woman. Garry Marshall returns as their director in Runaway Bride, a story that entertains and charms but falls just this side of the status of major romantic comedy.

Yes, the chemistry's there, and Marshall seems to have romantic formulas down to a science. From the credit-less opening to the set decoration, the film is slick and fairly fast-paced. The piece is two hours long and it fills all of these minutes pleasantly enough. I think what is missing, though, is enough character development, especially of Ike Graham, Gere's character; we don't know him quite enough to care enough.

We know that Graham is an acerbic columnist for USA Today, based in Manhattan. His specialty seems to be busting the chops of the opposite sex. (A running gag involves Graham's being rapped by newspaper-swinging old women.) When he fails to check the facts given him by one drunken source, Ike gets fired. It's oddly convenient that his editor is his "ex," Ellie (Rita Wilson). She's now married to one of Ike's best friends, Fisher (Hector Elizondo, a fixture in Marshall movies). So the legendary Ike Graham is out of work, the paper printing a retraction that appears to please the victim of Ike's column, one Maggie Carpenter (Roberts).

What's the conceit here? It's the Runaway Bride angle, the fact that Maggie has strode down the aisle and then skedaddled three times, leaving three men witless and wife-less. Because she's stuck it to him, Ike decides to shadow Maggie for another story, this time a piece for GQ, and he drives the 90 or so miles down the coast to Hale, Maryland, where Maggie runs the family hardware store. Of course Ike's new take on the situation is that she will run again, and it just happens that Maggie is engaged to a fourth guy, an extremely decent mountain climber and high school football coach named Bob (Christopher Meloni). Maggie is not pleased to see Ike's invasion of her domain, and she strikes first in a unique scene that shows us Ike with a multi-colored head.

What's funny here is how Ike insinuates himself into Maggie's life. He seems to beat Maggie to every destination her life carries her: when she arrives home, Ike is already there talking with her father and grandmother about her; when she drives to an ex-fiance's garage, Ike is sitting in an old Volkswagen 'Thing" atop the hydraulic lift, a picture of a topless Maggie in his hands. When Maggie reverses the role and begins to appear inside Ike's quarters when he arrives home, the conflict and comedy increase. The remainder of the plot follows Ike as he follows Maggie. After a time the two form a rather improbably friendship, Maggie offering to let Ike interview her for a rather large fee (which she plans to spend on an extravagant wedding dress). All the time the chemistry between the two is reacting more intensely. At a luau that friend Peggy Flemming (Joan Cusack) throws for Maggie, Ike even defends Maggie when her friends go too far with the runaway bride jokes.

The film does a nice job with all this rising action, Ike's hunt for clues with which to assassinate Maggie's character, and Maggie's counteractions, subtly assisted by her friends. A bit of flatness hits once the climax is over, though; the predictable premise of all romantic comedies comes across as simply a way to end the film - although it never reaches a high level of satisfaction.

Maybe we need to know more about Ike Graham. From the outset he has to wrestle with the stereotype of being a shallow misogynist, a man hated by half the human race. We know he's divorced from Ellie the editor. We discover he's an aspiring novelist, a vocation his mother wanted for him, and indeed this is made more plausible by the books on his shelf (including Melville), and the ones he reads as he and Maggie go through the mini-scenes that show they are falling in love (Yeats, Poe). But we know very little else. After he arrives in Hale Ike rarely even uses his mini-recorded, and we never see him actually scribbling or word-processing anything resembling a piece for GQ, a publication never mentioned after Fisher brings it up. This doesn't surprise, as other subplots are not completed either, including one in which Walter, Maggie's father (Paul Dooley), is an alcoholic whose behavior only Maggie rather mildly objects to.

More characterization would let us like Ike more, even though Richard Gere does nice work handling his character. Most of the focus is placed on Maggie - if Henry James were a screenwriter in the late twentieth-century, he would occupy himself with writing such character studies. Maggie's psychology is filled in rather interestingly. One part of her is compliant, Zelig-like, in that she likes her eggs cooked the very same way as the man she is currently engaged to marry. Another part is egotistical, attention-seeking. But after all, she is independent and competent, her job as hardware expert taking her into the obscure realm of antique fixtures and restoration. She even designs lamps fabricated from a funky selection of electrical components. Roberts handles Maggie with comfort: she's much more mature than her character in Pretty Woman - though still not secure. Roberts is a good sport, too: at one point she grabs those lips of hers and imitates a duck-billed platypus!

As Peggy Flemming ("not the skater"), Joan Cusack is her normal excellent self. She's a veteran, and one hopes that her future roles get more screen time. Cusack has a manner both sincere and comical, and she has some delightful interaction with Roberts that suggest their characters go back to girlhood.

Maggie's hometown of Hale, Maryland plays a supporting role here too. The screenwriters, Josann McGibbon and Sara Parriott, often compare it to Mayberry, and this portrayal largely succeeds. The result is a place gently satirized by Ike as he whistles the theme song to the 'The Andy Griffith Show" as he jogs beside Maggie riding her old-fashioned bike. It's also a place that looks absolutely charming on screen, streets cozily arranged, storefronts invitingly shot. A place, in short, that exists in our collective memory, mythic and non-existent. A familiar and down-home burg 120 miles south-southwest of Manhattan. You can hear Garry Marshall with his New York accent saying, "OK, everything nice! Roll it!" Actually, the contrast between Hale's sleepy streets and the Big Apple locales functions nicely.

Though it will not be included in the canon of major American romantic comedies, Runaway Bride is entertaining fare. We saw the film in its second week of release, and it is better than the buzz said it would be. The PG rating is very pleasing, too - we brought along our daughter without any problem of pre-screening.

	Running Time: 116 Min | Rated PG | US Release: July 30th | More >>

Related 'Runaway Bride' Links:

• Official Site
• Unofficial Site
• Ravecentral: Runaway Bride
• Star Seeker Movies: Runaway Bride (1999)

Catch her if you can.