If you're looking for a variety of cinematic diversions on Super Bowl weekend, then you're crap out of luck. No studio dares to compete with the enduring spectacle of macho cretins knocking heads--unless of course, they have a "rom-com" on deck. Yes, the "romantic comedy"… the last glimmer of hope on a weekend devoted to testosterone. Well ladies, tell your meathead hubby to choke on his chicken wings, because The Wedding Date is the rom-com you're looking for.

Debra Messing (Will & Grace) stars as single gal Kat Ellis, who dreads attending her sister's wedding in London because: a) She's still single after being dumped two years earlier, and b) the guy who did the dumping is going to be the best man! Yes, remarkable coincidences suck, but Kat is determined to drive her ex-BF crackers by hiring a male escort (Dermot Mulroney as the whore) to pose as her new man-meat. Soon enough however, Kat--like Richard Gere in Pretty Woman--begins to learn valuable life lessons from her whore, after which romantic feelings and subsequent complications follow.

What's great about this rom-com romp is how director Clare Kilner knows she's dealing with a deeply stupid plot, and quickly speeds through the implausible sections. Even better, she slows down for the parts that really matter--the emotional complications. Messing smartly underplays the scatterbrained, but vulnerable Kat, and while not fantastic, Mulroney the whore is sufficiently hunky--which is really all the role requires. (There is the obvious question of STDs, but Kilner makes you forget that, too.)

The reason why The Wedding Date works is that the comedy is derived from the emotional instability (and lovability) of the characters, rather than the forced stereotypes and plotting of a My Big Fat Greek Wedding. All in all, it makes a perfectly charming and enjoyable alternative to the Super Bowl, and will make your hubby wonder what's with your sudden interest in male whores.