As much as I adore Alison Brie and Lizzy Caplan, I couldn’t find much to love about Save the Date (2013), a middling affair that wastes its talented comedic cast in a blasé relationship tangle. Sarah (Caplan) is moving in with her long-time boyfriend Kevin (Geoffrey Arend), but even on the way over she’s starting to get cold feet. Meanwhile, Sarah’s sister Beth (Brie) is the opposite, enthusiastically planning her marriage to the drummer in Kevin’s band, Andrew (Martin Starr). With commitment in the air, Kevin pushes Sarah too quickly toward the next level, but Sarah’s a major commitment-phobe, so she panics, rushing into a rebound relationship with a smitten admirer, Jonathan (Mark Webber).
That’s about it, really. Save the Date is low budget, low key, and low frills, an unmemorable film about sisters taking different romantic paths, and trying to figure out their relationship to each other. But it never catches fire: it’s not quite funny, not quite dramatic, not quite moving, not quite interesting. I think it’s shooting for quirky, indie insight, but it plays out generically, a sequence of bland, thirtyish life experiences. It’s well played by everyone, especially Caplan in the central role, but the cast has precious little to work with. A dud.
