D+

To discover the central problem with “The Wedding Planner,” you need go no further than to peruse the press notes that Columbia Pictures has kindly provided for Adam Shankman’s directorial debut. The entry for neophyte writers Pamela Falk and Michael Ellis, clearly from their own word processors, is bone-numbingly cute, recounting, in faux screenplay form, how they became a couple (both romantic and professional) at Drexel University and how their relationship dissolved even as they sold their first script. The five paragraphs try so hard, and so unsuccessfully, to appear clever while working their way to a thoroughly predictable conclusion that they literally put one’s teeth on edge.

Falk and Ellis’ contribution to Shankman’s picture is equally grating. They intend the film to be an effervescent romantic comedy, but such a confection needs to be light and airy; the result here, due in no small measure to their ineptitude, is heavy and leaden. The premise–workaholic wedding planner Mary Fiore (Jennifer Lopez) finally falls for a perfect guy, Steve Edison (Matthew McConaughey) (a pediatrician, no less, who saves her life), only to discover that he’s the groom-to-be of her newest, and most important, client Fran Donolly (Bridgette Wilson- Sampras)–is formulaic enough, with a foregone conclusion, but had it been handled with a dexterous touch it might have been the basis for an amusing, if lightweight, trifle. Unfortunately, the writers have coarsened it by portraying everything in the most ham-fisted, unsubtle manner possible. Each character, from the leads to the merest walk-on, is totally one-dimensional, and every situation and line of dialogue blandly unoriginal; the quality is about on the level of one of those dreadful sitcoms that NBC regularly schedules in the 7:30 Thursday-night hammock between its entrenched smashes, hoping that the time slot alone will lure in an audience. Scriptwise, “The Wedding Planner” is like a prefabricated house. It has all the necessary parts, but the way in which they’re fitted together shows absolutely no imagination or grace. When, for instance, the writers feel compelled to provide an obligatory alternative beau for their titular protagonist, they drag him into the action in an overly contrived fashion (he is, for some unfathomable reason, a just-arrived Italian immigrant with whom our girl’s crotchety but lovable father tries to fix her up); and when they abruptly insert a back-story explanation for Mary’s driven life and aversion to dating, it not only comes out of left field but is portrayed in an absurd fashion that makes the poor girl seem like a modern-day Lucy Ricardo. One can make similar complaints about secondary characters like Penny, Mary’s assistant (Judy Greer), who’s nothing but a nattering boob; or her father Salvatore (Alec Rocco), whose supposedly colorful persona comes across as a fumbling stereotype; or her Italian suitor Massimo (Justin Chambers), who’s presented as both doltishly uncomprehending and sweetly naive, depending on whatever the script requires at any given moment; or Fran’s parents (Joanna Gleason and Charles Kimbrough), who are no more nuanced than the snooty in-laws-to-be one recalls none too fondly from 1950s flicks like “Auntie Mame.”

The deficiencies of the writing might have been mitigated by the director and stars, but with a single exception that doesn’t happen; indeed, almost everything is played so broadly that it seems as though the entire picture were shot in italics. Shankman stages the piece as though he were wielding the camera as a blunt instrument; he’s a choreographer by trade, but nonetheless doesn’t even manage to do anything with a sequence involving a tango between Mary and Steve under the tutelage of a flamboyant dance instructor (a wasted Fred Willard, whose sole joke lies in his character’s name, Basil St. Mosely). Lopez tries hard to make it as a Julia Roberts type, but the effort is all too evident; when she’s called upon to do a drunk scene, for instance, the result is embarrassing. Rocco can’t even manage his accent as Mary’s loving dad (he speaks as though his dentures were wobbling around in his mouth), and Wilson-Sampras remains as frigid a screen presence as she was in “Love Stinks.” Undemanding viewers may find the befuddled bumbling of Chambers’ Massimo charming, and, to be sure, the actor does what he can with the caricature, but it’s still nothing more than that. The worst offender, though, is surely Greer, who overdoes every gesture and line reading to such an extent that her scenes are physically exhausting–not so much for her as for the audience. By contrast, McConaughey exhibits an easygoing presence that makes him an oasis of moderation in field of overemphasis. If everybody else had toned down their performances to a similar level, the picture might not have come across as so desperately eager to please. But that still would have left the maddeningly bouncy score by Mervyn Warren, which feels compelled to underline every supposed laugh and accentuate each romantic “moment” in the most overbearing fashion. It’s the musical equivalent of somebody sticking his elbow in your ribs every few seconds to insure that you get the point.

“The Wedding Planner” looks good, with solid production values and creamy cinematography by Julio Macat. But ultimately all its surface polish doesn’t count for much. The picture is like one of those elaborately-decorated cakes at wedding receptions that proves tasteless and indigestible when one bites into it. It’s half-baked in more ways than one.