The word "inspiration" gets kicked around a lot in this tired romantic comedy, which draws its own inspiration from Rachel Getting Married (2008) and the dozens of other films made about pre-nuptial conflicts, breakdowns, disasters, and reconciliations.
Laura (Katie Holmes) may be the maid of honor at the wedding of her best friend, Lila (Anna Paquin), but she still carries a torch for the groom, Tom (Josh Duhamel), a swimming champ, PhD candidate in English literature, and bore. The night before the big day, Tom swims away in the ocean, and Lila's vulgar and charmless friends swap partners, get drunk, commit petty infidelities, and halfheartedly search Lila's parents' ritzy seaside estate for the errant swain.
Inevitably, life lessons are learned, Keats gets quoted, and director Galt Niederhoffer, adapting her own novel, uses a wobbly camera to denote emotion. But as far as missing-bridegroom movies go, this is less inspiring than The Hangover.
