Philip French 

The Decoy Bride – review

The ghosts of three Scottish classics collide in this unimaginative comedy, writes Philip French
  
  

2011, THE DECOY BRIDE
David Tennant and Kelly Macdonald in The Decoy Bride: 'Something less than a mirthful time is had by all.' Photograph: Allstar/CinemaNX/Sportsphoto Ltd Photograph: Allstar/CINEMANX/Sportsphoto Ltd./Allstar

This dull, unimaginative comedy stars an unhappy David Tennant as an English novelist coming to a remote Scottish island to marry his fiancee, a self-centred Hollywood star (a bewildered Alice Eve), in secret. Their PR man hires a reluctant local girl (an ill-at-ease Kelly Macdonald) to fool the paparazzi, and something less than a mirthful time is had by all. It's a mishmash of three famous Scottish pictures about canny folk from the Highlands and Islands getting the better of visiting Sassenachs: Alexander Mackendrick's Whisky Galore, Powell and Pressburger's I Know Where I'm Going and Bill Forsyth's Local Hero. It should have been called "I Know Where I'm Gurning".

 

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