Welcome to Rearview Mirror, a monthly movie column in which I re-view and then re-review a movie I have already seen under the new (and improved?) critical lens of 2022. I’m so happy you’re here.
Two sisters date two bandmates. One sister, Type A and traditional, is engaged to the drummer, a lovable, gets-along-with-everyone type. The moodier, artsier sister just moved in with the guitarist/lead singer, though she fears suffocation and a loss of freedom. When he proposes at the band’s show, she balks and flees, and the moment is recorded and goes viral, at least within the band’s fandom. The mature sister is left to pick up the pieces amid the stress of wedding planning, her fiancé torn between his best friend and his in-laws-to-be, while the less responsible sister takes up with a sweet man who’s been crushing on her from afar.
If this sounds like the premise of a sitcom, that’s because it basically is. Rearrange those beats and you’ll get both the pilot of Happy Endings (younger sister of a happily married Type A control freak ditches her fiancé at the altar; video of the moment goes viral; the friend group struggles to stay together) and the recently premiered How I Met Your Father (a musician proposes to his girlfriend/bandmate, she says no and walks away, video of the moment goes viral, he goes on the rebound). But in this case, it’s the premise of Save the Date, a not-quite comedy that came out, depending on what premiere date you honor (we’re going by Sundance, because why not), basically 10 years ago this past Saturday.
Alison Brie plays Beth and Lizzy Caplan plays Sarah. Their personalities are exactly the ones you’re assuming based on the casting, and they’re well-paired and believable as on-screen sisters (I think Caplan might have even been a better fit for Brie’s role on GLOW, but that’s a discussion for another time). Martin Starr is Beth’s affable partner Andrew, Geoffrey Arend his jilted bandmate Kevin (fans of Party Down will not be disappointed here). Rounding out the cast is Mark Webber as Jonathan, who calls Sarah “Bookstore Girl” after spotting her at the bookstore she manages.
The dialogue is witty yet natural, a hard needle to thread and a strength of the screenplay that goes a long way in making up for the fact that the plot is just a little soft.
This moniker and a few other details—like Sarah’s hipster-y illustrations, her female cat named Ferdinand, and the fact that she occasionally puts a vinyl record on (on a pink record player) during sex—border on annoyingly twee, but can be forgiven given the era, alongside the fact that Beth is always belting her outfits. Like, with the wide belt that goes just under your ribcage. God, we made some fashion mistakes in 2012. Jonathan suffers from quirkiness, too: he’s at the aforementioned rock show because he's made it a mission to see every band with “wolf” in its name. The reason for this is never explained, but then again, he’s a marine biologist, so maybe his backstory is that he was created in a lab to be a rom-com boyfriend.
The dialogue is witty yet natural, a hard needle to thread and a strength of the screenplay that goes a long way in making up for the fact that the plot is just a little soft. The characters hurt each other’s feelings and then apologize the way mature(ish) adults do. Everyone’s basically a decent person, able to talk their way through their middle-class challenges. Honest, accurate, and a tiny bit boring. But at just 98 minutes, it’s still well worth the time it asks of its audience.
The most heightened character is given relatively little screen time. While Beth keeps remarking that Sarah is on the rebound and irresponsible, she actually handles the breakup pretty well and advocates for her needs clearly. It’s Kevin who loses it, drinking too much and sleeping with groupies to numb his heartache before finally finding closure after (spoiler) punching Jonathan in the face, a thing nice guys only seem to do in movies and on TV. The MVP of the bunch is, surprisingly, Martin Starr. Though he isn’t given much to do besides drag his feet about wedding planning and plead for everyone to get along, he infuses the character with a calm warmth that makes you understand exactly why Beth loves him. He’s the perfect brother-in-law, the one you want to join your family, despite having little outward quote-unquote perfection. It makes me think Starr should be a bigger…don’t say it…but I have to…I’m sorry…star.
This movie made next to nothing at the box office, and I think I know why. Just a year earlier, Bridesmaids had swept the nation, a big-hearted, laugh-out-loud rom-com that takes place, like so many rom-coms do, in the lead-up to a wedding. In mid-2012, we got the sweet mainstream flick The Five-Year Engagement (with Brie) and a few months later, the slightly acidic indie Bachelorette (with Caplan), which both take place, you guessed it, in the lead-up to a wedding. By the time Save the Date finally hit theaters at the very end of 2012, the audience had eaten their fill of cinematic bridal shower cupcakes. I saw it, I think, during a watch-every-indie binge a few years ago, and didn’t remember much except for the third act twist, which I won’t spoil here, though upon re-watching, it is clearly foreshadowed. But seeing it again now, I was charmed and entertained, and if you’re not sick of weddings this time around, you might be too. FL
