Director: Ol Parker, US, 12A, 94min
Stars: Lena Headey, Piper Perabo, Matthew Goode
On general release
The course of true love never runs smoothly in a British rom-com, particularly when the bride falls for the girl who arranges the flowers. Parker’s feature debut is a sweet, old-fashioned comedy with a lesbian twist.
Goode is the baffled Hugh Grant-ish husband who can’t work out why his fetching new wife (Perabo) is less than enthused by his performances between the sheets. Cue Headey, the Primrose Hill flower shop owner who falls in love with Perabo (and vice versa) the first time she sets eyes on the bride at her wedding. They are fortuitously yanked together at flirty dinner parties, football matches and supermarkets with unwitting partners and bitchy friends. The chemistry between the two actresses — one prim and proper, the other grungy and bohemian — is as touching and chaste as their first kiss. Goode is a dithering joy as the upper-crust City merchant who feels his relationship mysteriously slipping away. A spiteful Celia Imrie and a hen-pecked Anthony Head provide a pair of memorable cameos as Perabo’s squabbling parents. A frothy pleasure.
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JAMES CHRISTOPHER