Review Summary

At the beginning of “27 Dresses,” Jane (Katherine Heigl), a serial bridesmaid with an almost pathological devotion to other people’s nuptials, spends a long night shuttling between two weddings. One is in Midtown Manhattan, the other in Brooklyn; one has an upper-crusty, white-bread look, while the other appears to be a Jewish-Hindu intermarriage. But as the director, Anne Fletcher, methodically cuts back and forth between them, she makes the reasonably insightful, moderately funny point that modern American weddings, however they may strain for individuality and specialness, are all pretty much alike. The problem is that much the same could be said about modern American romantic comedies. There is a touch of idiosyncrasy here and there — in this one the heroine’s dad is a widower who owns a hardware store! — but most of the elements might as well have been pulled off the registry list at a high-end chain store. — A. O. Scott, The New York Times