Save the Date

R

Released Dec 14, 2012

1 hr. 38 min.

Romance

Comedy

Drama

List

47%

30 Reviews

Tomatometer

36%

2,500+ Ratings

Audience Score

After breaking up with her boyfriend, a bookstore manager (Lizzy Caplan) resists a seemingly perfect guy's (Mark Webber) attempts to woo her.

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Hapa u

Great character development, acting, script!! This needs to be rated higher. So good!!!!

Rated 5 out of 5 stars

05/25/23

Full Review

reuben m

SAVE THE DATE just doesn't quite work. I didn't actively dislike the movie, but when it was all over, it just sort of sat there without leaving any kind of impression to speak of. The main character is played by Lizzy Caplan, and right there you know you'll have something interesting. While not the greatest actress of all time by a mile, she brings a certain energy and commitment to her performances that makes even a throwaway character (like the one in CLOVERFIELD) somehow the most interesting person in the film. She's a bookstore manager who is also seemingly on the cusp of breaking out as a visual artist (her first show is coming up). She dating the lead singer of a popular regional rock band, and they're moving in together. In the background, her sister (Alison Brie) is engaged to the guitarist in the same band (Martin Starr, giving a performance quite a long way off from his work in stuff like SILICON VALLEY...I mean that in a good way, he's showing some range here.) But Caplan doubts this is the relationship for her, and things unravel early on (and somewhat spectacularly too). Caplan and her boyfriend are left somewhat adrift. The boyfriend pines, hopes for a reunion even though he's seething with anger, etc. Caplan professes to be happy, but it's clear she isn't. And her sister is oddly resentful of Caplan choosing this time to distract from her own upcoming nuptials. The relationship of the two is very much strained. They know each other better than anyone else knows them...and they love each other but don't always like what they see in the other. Anyway, this makes it sound like SAVE THE DATE is a pretty heavy drama. It's not. But it's also not light-footed or light-hearted enough to be a full on "rom com." It falls in between and this is the most unfortunate thing. It's not funny enough to be a memorable comedy. It doesn't dig deep enough to be a really meaningful drama. And Caplan's character is difficult to like. She hems and haws and never REALLY seems to understand that her actions have consequences on the happiness or lack thereof of the people closest to her. Brie comes off as a bit shrewish and one-dimensional, and is thus also a little difficult to like. Yes, real life is a bit messy and sloppy. We aren't always likeable and we often aren't our best selves. But for a movie, we should at least CARE about how things turn out for many of the characters. We're asked to invest in these folks for a couple of hours, and the best films make it easy. This film makes it hard. I rooted (to some extent) for Caplan, but mostly because of how much I liked her in, oh, MASTERS OF SEX or PARTY DOWN or even TRUE BLOOD or CASTLE ROCK. It's possible that Caplan fell short as an actor in this film, but I think the writing and direction were the true issues. The directing was uninspired, at best. It didn't even do a good job really establishing a sense of place (at the end, my wife asked me, "where did that movie take place?" and I had to really think about it.) The writing was ambitious, I would say, but is having a couple "meet cute" in a bookstore really something we can accept anymore? That felt so terribly lazy. So, while I didn't feel I had truly wasted my time watching this, and while I was reasonably diverted...you can certainly find many better rom-coms or rom-dramas out there that will serve you even better.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

03/31/23

Full Review

Audience Member

Enjoyable, if unaffecting Lizzy Caplan vehicle.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

01/18/23

Full Review

Audience Member

I really wanted to like this movie. I waited and waited for something to happen and just when it seemed like it was about to get interesting, the movie ended. What a waste of a great cast.

Rated 1 out of 5 stars

02/24/23

Full Review

Audience Member

The ending was so abrupt, I felt cheated...

Rated 3.5 out of 5 stars

01/18/23

Full Review

Audience Member

This movie was much ado about not that much, sort of a slick student film with too much zooming at times (tho' nicely shot). However, there's something totally watchable about Lizzy (for a guy), and that's the case here. What man reaching age 35 hasn't encountered her character type ultimately to pain & regret. Toward the end the film began to take on the elements of a story with some story elements, if that can be deciphered. But the guys all seemed like such wushnikovs around these two gals (sisters)! Some have called this a rom-com. Mmmm, rom without much com.

Rated 2.5 out of 5 stars

02/18/23

Full Review

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Michael Mohan

Director

Lizzy Caplan

Sarah

Alison Brie

Beth

Martin Starr

Andrew

Geoffrey Arend

Kevin

Mark Webber

Jonathan

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Sheri Linden

Los Angeles Times

Lizzy Caplan and Alison Brie lend the lightweight rom-com "Save the Date" more than its fair share of watchability. But the film is never truly interesting.

Rated: 2.5/5

Dec 14, 2012

Full Review

Alison Willmore

Movieline

Manages its modest pleasures because of its likable cast.

Rated: 7/10

Dec 14, 2012

Full Review

Sara Stewart

New York Post

While Caplan works well in theory as an antiromantic-comedy heroine, director and co-screenwriter Michael Mohan just doesn't give her enough to do.

Rated: 2/4

Dec 14, 2012

Full Review

Erika W. Smith

Bust Magazine

Caplan and Brie deserve a much better movie than this.

Oct 5, 2016

Full Review

Cory Everett

The Playlist

Light in tone without being insubstantial, this is what more romantic comedies should aspire to be.

Rated: B

Jul 10, 2013

Full Review

Meredith Borders

Birth.Movies.Death.

SAVE THE DATE is a mature, refreshingly honest portrait of relationships - between lovers, family members and friends - that never fails to deliver humor and insight.

Apr 3, 2013

Full Review

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Synopsis

After breaking up with her boyfriend, a bookstore manager (Lizzy Caplan) resists a seemingly perfect guy's (Mark Webber) attempts to woo her.

Director: Michael Mohan
Executive Producer: Gary Gilbert
Screenwriter: Jeffrey Brown, Egan Reich, Michael Mohan
Distributor: IFC Films
Production Co: XYZ Films, Gilbert Films, Night & Day Pictures, Instinctive Film
Rating: R (Sexual Content|Language|Brief Drug Use)
Genre: Romance, Comedy, Drama
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Dec 14, 2012, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Aug 19, 2016
Box Office (Gross USA): $3.8K

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