Marry Me

Cheesier than Wisconsin, but generally sweet and entertaining, modern fairy tale Marry Me finds one of its co-leads rising to the occasion and the other struggling to keep up.

The successful actor is none other than Owen Wilson, whose genuinely funny, “aw shucks” everyman quips as NYC middle school math teacher Charlie serve as a welcome respite from the insane situation in which he finds himself.

That new normal? Marrying pop star Kat Valdez (Jennifer Lopez) on stage before a global audience after coming to her rescue once a video leaks of her fiancé Bastian (Latin recording artist Maluma) — with whom she was supposed to tie the knot upon performing their titular single — fooling around with her assistant.

The subsequent PR circus orchestrated by Kat’s manager Colin (John Bradley, Sam from Game of Thrones) finds Charlie playing along as best he can within his new wife’s paparazzi-filled, live-stream existence — a constant barrage of photo shoots, endorsement appearances, and her own team filming interactions that probably shouldn’t be made public, all of which play like a nightmare for anyone not obsessed with the celebrity machine.

Director Kat Coiro, who’s helming the She-Hulk series for Disney+, appears to film a decent amount of these promotion-centric scenes with a fisheye lens — possibly as a means of offering commentary on the skewed reality of Kat’s lifestyle, though its inconsistent employment suggests that it might very well just be a stylistic accident with no underlying message.

Throughout these alien encounters, Charlie receives support from gifted child actor Chloe Coleman (My Spy) as his tween daughter Lou, and a scene-stealing Sarah Silverman as fellow teacher — and unabashed Kat fangirl — Parker. And the more time he spends with Kat, the more their publicity stunt relationship feels like the real thing, particularly as she develops an interest in his math team, resulting in some of the film’s cheeriest moments.

But while Lopez remains one of the world’s most beautiful famous people and wields tremendous presence, her limitations as an actor are evident throughout Marry Me, particularly whenever she’s asked to express anything resembling a complex emotion. And though she and Wilson make for a dynamic enough duo in their shared scenes, Lopez is somewhat on cruise control during the film’s musical stretches, during which ear-worms nevertheless arise.

Sappy though it all is, there’s a good message at the heart of this glitzy rom-com, and when it comes to date movies, viewers could do a lot worse.

Grade: C. Rated PG-13. Now playing at AMC River Hills 10, Carolina Cinemark, and Regal Biltmore Grande.

(Photo: Barry Wetcher/Universal Pictures)