Stars: Richard Gere, Julia Roberts
There’s no denying that Richard Gere and Julia Roberts have great chemistry together, but this film truly does not do them justice.
Maggie Carpenter (Roberts) is known as the Runaway Bride of the small town of Hale, Maryland. She’s the running joke, in fact, the butt of everybody’s hilarity from her best friend’s to her father’s. She gets engaged and with each new fellow, she gets as far as the altar then takes off running. It’s more a problem with understanding her own identity rather than simply a fear of commitment. She gets swayed by the habits and likes of each of the men even though Maggie really is quite a strong personality.
A USA Today columnist, Ike Graham (Gere) hits on the story. It actually fits his agenda very well since he is known countrywide for writing “bitter diatribes” against women. Now Maggie has him to worry about as well.
With potential hubby number four courting Maggie, Ike visits the town to stalk her and get all the juicy details about this “maneater”. He soon discovers that Maggie’s got a lot going for herself and an attraction develops.
The story is just fair and even though it’s hard to keep Roberts’ sparkle in check, she can’t make this one go any further than it was meant to. Gere’s certainly appealing too and you’ll find a few other faces from “Pretty Woman” (Hector Elizondo in particular) in here, for good luck no doubt but this is not a remake of that wonderful film as some people thought it was going to be.
Lotta says the story just wasn’t all that appealing or interesting.