Next week, America's new blue-state morality gets a comedic trial run in the made-for-TV movie Wedding Wars. Producers Craig Zadan and Neil Meron (Chicago, and the upcoming film version of Hairspray ) have a great track record for handling gay-friendly material with intelligence and respect. This time around, they take on gay marriage, with television stalwart John Stamos assaying the leading role of a gay party-planner named Shel.
Hunky Eric Dane (Grey's Anatomy ) play's Shel's uptight, straight brother, Ben, who is about to marry Maggie (Bonnie Somerville), the daughter of Maine Governor Conrad Welling (James Brolin). Ben works as an advisor to the governor, who is in the middle of a re-election campaign. Ben and Maggie invite Shel to plan their wedding on the grounds of the governor's palatial home.
Shel works his transformative queer magic on the upcoming nuptials, while his district attorney boyfriend, Ted (Sean Maher), watches from the sidelines. In the middle of the wedding preparations, the governor delivers a speech opposing gay marriage — a speech written by his future son-in-law, Ben — and the organza quickly hits the fan. Shel reacts with a work stoppage, pickets the governor's home, and unwittingly instigates a nationwide homosexual protest.
Working from a teleplay by Stephen Mazur, director Jim Fall handles this material with the light touch one would expect from a TV-movie. This is both the good and the bad news. Adversarial positions, civil rights, and thorny legal questions are all siphoned into the grinder and spit out as fodder for comic relief. Given the emotional charge this issue has in the heartland, it may be the wisest choice. Certainly there is nothing here that will offend gay people, and the spoonful of sugar containing the equal-rights message will probably make the medicine go down well, even in red-state territory.
John Stamos does a creditable job of keeping Shel just to the right of Queer Eye's over-the-top Carson Kressley. His Shel is a likable, inoffensive version of the gay party boy, and he is actually allowed to kiss his boyfriend Ted on camera several times. James Brolin, who looks more like Ronald Reagan every day, will get lots of respect from his real-life wife (and the mother of a gay son), Barbra Streisand. And the nation may actually move one half-step forward toward accepting the inevitability of gay marriage based on the essentially sweet way the message is being sold here.
Wedding Wars is not Angels in America or The Normal Heart, nor is it meant to be. It is, rather, a good-natured comedy that puts relationships between same-sex partners on a par with heterosexual relationships. By doing so successfully, it makes it seem ridiculous that anyone would attempt to do otherwise. And this, with apologies to Ms. Stewart, is a good thing.
Wedding Wars airs Monday night, December 11, 9 p.m. on A&E.