The first romantic comedy ever made must have been both revolutionary and profound. Maybe some women found themselves admiring the emotionally desperate in their attempts to find the perfect match, while laughing at jokes about sex and marriage along the way.

That was then. Now, you can expect to see Sandra Bullock, Meg Ryan or, for the most part, any movie that comes from England using this overplayed genre.

While watching a romantic comedy, one has to expect a few things. First, there’s the nervous wreck of a woman who has somehow been emotionally damaged or is presently working on that. There is, of course, the male character, who sometimes has character flaws or has flaws beyond that the woman finds a way to overlook. Eventually there’s the sex and the romance followed by some uncommon twist or kink that adds the slight possibility that the ending might not be the ever-expected happy one. Finally, there’s the unneccessary chase scene followed by the “surprising,” yet ever-expected happy ending.

And, to add to the list of repetitions, we now have “The Wedding Date,” starring Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney. This particular model follows the same strategy, with Messing pulling the same role she works on NBC’s “Will and Grace,” and Mulroney rediscovering the studly persona that he gave us in “My Best Friend’s Wedding.”

Having been dumped two years previous, Messing’s character Kat Ellis finds herself invited to her sister’s wedding, where the ex-boyfriend is going to be the best man. Still recovering from the emotional damage, she hasn’t yet found a boyfriend. So she goes the most rational route and hires a male escort – gigolo, if you will – to accompany her. She also wants to make her ex jealous in hopes of restarting that relationship.

Luckily, the hired help turns out to be the romantic Nick Mercer (Mulroney), who is not only charming and well-spoken, but also knows the ins and outs of human emotion and love, something most wouldn’t expect to find in a hooker.

Posing as an intimate couple, they manage to convince Kat’s family and friends that they’ve been in love for quite some time, while actually finding true romance along the way. The rest of the plot consists of sex jokes and hopes for potential happiness.

Unfortunately, in order to enjoy this movie, one has to put a complete stop to all thought and critical sense, and accept what the screen gives as remotely feasible. The most obvious problem is that a professional man-whore would so easily fall in love with a tragically desperate woman, without having already done so with the hundreds of other desperate women he’d been hired by.

This is the likely reason men, if they were to break precedent and go out of their way for this film, wouldn’t be satisfied. Guys can’t see the possibility of giving up professional sex for an overly dramatic relationship with a baggage-toting, emotional wreck. By all accounts, it doesn’t make sense.

But there’s plenty here to fit women’s tastes, as it follows the trends that have made romantic comedies popular in the past. Messing plays the same kooky, spastic romantic, tripping over herself while trying to land a man that Jennifer Lopez gave the world to in “Maid in Manhattan.” Mulroney does the overdone. He becomes the same perfect man with perfect qualities that Hugh Grant became in “Two Weeks Notice,” adding him to the list of actors men hate, as these Hollywood stars make men look very, very bad.

Colin Lacy can be reached [email protected].