Film Review: The Decoy Bride

The Decoy Bride is a romantic comedy written by Sally Phillips and Neil Jaworski and starring former Time Lord David Tennant, Nanny MacPhee‘s Kelly Macdonald and She’s Out of My League‘s Alice Eve.

I always think of The Decoy Bride as the film to watch when you’re either ill, sad or need a good cry (there’s a difference between the latter and sad). The plot is particularly angst-ridden as the wedding of super famous actress Lara Tyler (Alice Eve) and blocked writer James Arber (David Tennant) is ruined by paparazzi at the beginning of the film. The couple decide therefore that they have to up sticks and go to the remote island of Hegg in the Outer Hebrides of Scotland where Arber set his ridiculously obnoxious novel, The Ornithologist’s Wife. But surprise surprise – that wedding goes wrong too!

Local unlucky-in-love girl Katie Nic Aodh (Kelly Macdonald) ends up stepping in as – you guessed it – a decoy bride while Lara Tyler runs away from the press. In an unfortunate turn of events, they end up actually tying the knot. How’s that for awkward?

However, things only get worse when poor Katie falls in love with James Arber, “an emotionally retarded arty boy who’s in love with another woman,” as she describes him to her terminally ill mother. This is when you tend to form an emotional attachment to Katie and begin to hope that Arber has a sudden realisation that Lara Tyler isn’t right for him at all (which, by the way, she isn’t). Despite the wishing and heavy feeling in your heart, Sally Phillips plays with your emotions and makes us sit through what I can only describe as painful viewing when the pair head off to get divorced on their wedding day.

Credit where credit is due, though, to David Tennant and Kelly Macdonald for their fantastic acting in The Decoy Bride. The chemistry between the pair is unique and authentic, making up for the fact that the script itself is not entirely believable. Tennant masters the role of James Arber, harnessing his serious case of arrogance in the beginning, but displaying the scenes of him coming back down to Earth – thanks to Katie – brilliantly. Kelly Macdonald also harbours every emotion most girls have experienced before. By that I mean the moment when you tell your future husband that you’re “hotter than I look”. Nevertheless, she plays the role of Katie effortlessly and perfects every aspect of her character.

In all honesty, The Decoy Bride is pretty much some kind of fantasy film. While Phillips hits the nail on the head about celebrity culture, her script’s plot is just not real enough to resonate with viewers. However, the characters of James and Katie are real enough and do really strike a chord with viewers – you want them to be together just as much as they want to be together. The ending of The Decoy Bride is quite possibly one of my favourites of any rom-com ever. It is beautiful and it is just as romantic (with a bit of cheese grated on top) as you expect it to be.

Remember: ‘a chapter can be a book’.