The most obvious and routine bit of boilerplate appears at the end of "The Wedding Date." It's the one about how the events and characters depicted are fictitious and any similarity to actual persons is coincidental.

		'The Wedding Date' Rating: PG-13 for sexual content, including dialogue. Starring: Debra Messing, Dermot Mulroney. Director: Clare Kilner

Otherwise, we might believe that a woman who looks like Debra Messing can't find someone to pose as her boyfriend for her sister's wedding and that male escorts really do talk like Dr. Phil, look like Dermot Mulroney and have a degree in comparative literature from Brown University.

Welcome to the movies, the one already dubbed "Pretty Man," although Mulroney's escort needs no makeover or manners lesson and he earns $6,000, twice what Julia Roberts scored in "Pretty Woman." She was just a Hollywood hooker with a heart of gold; he's one of the best male escorts in the business who makes it clear that if any intimacy is involved, the fee goes up.

New Yorker Kat Ellis (Messing) says it was easier getting into college than getting Nick Mercer (Mulroney) on the phone. But she located him and booked him to appear as her doting beau for her self-absorbed sister's wedding in England. Kat's former fiance, who dumped her two years earlier and left her heartbroken, will be the best man, and she wants him to think she's wildly happy.

Enter Nick, a man who says things such as, "Every woman has exactly the love life she wants" and delivers a hypnotic pep talk that goes something like this: "Stop worrying. Forget the past. Forget the pain. Remember what an incredible woman you are. You do that, and he'll realize what he lost."

Someone's been watching Dr. Phil or Oprah. Or raiding the self-help section at the book store.

"The Wedding Date" follows Kat and Nick through a litany of liquor-laced functions, tracking their inevitable attraction, blowup and the pre-wedding chaos that ensues before those final credits.

Populating the parties are Kat's overbearing mother (Holland Taylor), understanding stepfather (Peter Egan), former British beau (Jeremy Sheffield), bratty sister (Amy Adams) and her future groom (Jack Davenport), and a cousin (Sarah Parish), filling in for the sassy best friend and uttering at least one line that tests the PG-13 boundary.

It's almost embarrassing to see that "The Wedding Date" was directed by a woman, written by a woman and inspired by a novel called "Asking for Trouble" by, you guessed it, a woman. Nick is treated like an exotic specimen; the bachelorette partygoers actually swarm around him and lap up his scent.

Messing uses most of her "Will & Grace" tricks -- her Lucy-like physicality, her hearty laugh, ability to turn on the anger or hurt or embarrassment -- while Mulroney must merely be the wisest, most handsome and expensive man in the room. They're trapped in a largely predictable script that has one especially ludicrous, alcohol-soaked memory lapse.

The best thing about "The Wedding Date" may be its posh English locations, from a hotel on Wimbledon Commons to a Surrey countryside manor where the guests gather. It's all very "Four Weddings and a Funeral," without Hugh Grant or Andie MacDowell or a story glowing with charm and originality.

One thing is certain. Meet-cutes in the movies aren't what they used to be.

Movie editor Barbara Vancheri can be reached at bvancheri@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1632.