Trailer Watch: A Previous Engagement, Mamma Mia!
I'm smack dab in the bullseye of the target audience for the indie comedy A Previous Engagement, which will likely only play for folks over 40 when it opens May 9 in NY and LA. But the trailer for this movie is hilarious. This reminds me of Enchanted April, the ultimate older women escapist fantasy. A Previous Engagement stars Brit thesp Juliet Stevenson, who can do comedy (Bend it like Beckham) or tragedy (the late great Anthony Minghella's romantic drama Truly Madly Deeply).
In this romantic comedy, written and directed by Joan Carr-Wiggin, Seattle librarian Julia Reynolds (Stevenson) coaxes her dull hubby Jack (Daniel Stern) to take a family vacation on Malta. Her undisclosed agenda is to keep the date she made twenty-five years ago with her first love Alex (Tcheky Karyo). When he shows up with a younger girlfriend in tow, all hell breaks loose.
Here's the trailer. 
Trawling similar terrain is the movie version of the hit theater musical Mamma Mia!, starring Meryl Streep as a free-wheeling mom whose daughter is getting married and invites to her island wedding three possible fathers--handsome charmers all-- Brit Colin Firth, Swede Stellan Skarsgard and Irish Pierce Brosnan. Here's the HD trailer.
I watched this movie on my Mac on the plane over to Cannes this May; it was terrible. It just goes to show that a well-made trailer is worth paying for. Clearly the director wrote a script good enough to lure decent actors, and then completely botched the job. Her taste in music was enough to make me want to throw off my headphones.
Posted by: anne thompson | June 10, 2008 at 03:22 PM
It definitely sounds like it could be a frustrating movie.
http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117937091.html?categoryid=31&cs=1
Posted by: T. Holly | June 10, 2008 at 06:31 PM