Apparently there is some humorous truth to this scene, something about looking bad at an inconvenient time.

Don't worry, I didn't get it either. Just feign a chuckle or shove another handful of popcorn down your throat - it wasn't for us to get.

Unfortunately, I'm not sure "The Wedding Date" does much service to the women, either.

Kat Ellis is a successful American woman dreading the London wedding of her younger sister, primarily because Kat's ex is the best man. As a bonus, her mother and sister are both unbearable twits who relish every opportunity to remind Kat that she is a failure because she didn't marry first.

In a desperate move to cushion the blow, Kat hires a strapping male escort (Mulroney) to pose as her date.

Surprisingly, this doesn't turn into "Four Weddings and a Manwhore."

Messing and Mulroney outshine the boring supporting stereotypes - the boozy gal pal straight from "Absolutely Fabulous" central casting, the pushy socialite mother - by adding some color to what could have been standard chick flick roles.

Instead of slipping into her familiar sitcom character, Messing replaces the quirky neuroses of Grace with the convincing desperation and hurt of someone forced to face her heartbreak in a smothering public setting.

Mulroney comes on like a glossy print ad for aftershave: rugged, worldly, slick, pretty and vacant.

But "The Wedding Date" isn't your run-of-the-mill chick flick anyway. Instead of standard themes like female bonding and empowerment, this movie plays with a different concept: that a successful, beautiful woman like Kat should be so socially paralyzed by a break-up that hiring an escort is her last chance for companionship.

Doesn't do much for the girls-next-door, does it?

I'd love to tell you that there is some end-game revelation about liberation from out-dated social expectations, but Kat's desperation envelopes any such messages.

Even a very liberal view of empowerment - that Kat is elevated in a modern way because she has the power to objectify another person the same way men have been doing it for centuries - would be a stretch.

I know, I know. Daniel, it's a movie. With Dermot Mulroney. Take it easy.

Right there on film, ignoring philosophical reservations, most of "The Wedding Date" isn't that bad.

But ultimately a hasty conclusion caters to my distinctly male - and probably unfair - expectations for the chick flick genre, and I can't help but feel that "The Wedding Date" underestimates not only its female audience, but their dates, too.