It did not disappoint. It's quite possibly my new favorite RomCom.
See, the thing about romantic comedies, is that to function properly, they need to follow a specific pattern. The bad ones don't. The middling ones do, but aren't that entertaining in between the needed plot points. But the good ones hit all the right points and are clever and sweet and believable and charming along the way. It's a predictable format, but the predictability is not the point; the point is that you have to root for these characters and want them to be together at the end, and then they have to get there. This one did it perfectly.
My Future Husband plays James Arbor, who has written a long and apparently boring book about a tiny Scottish island in the Hebrides called Hegg. His famous movie star fiancee Lara is so impressed by his genius and the book that after their attempt to get married is ruined by the paparazzi and they need to find somewhere more private to do it better, she picks there. Her wedding planners manage to take what is not at all like the way he explained it and turn it into the book, and it looks like all is going to go well. Meanwhile, Katie has just returned from an attempt at a career and a love life off the island and has sworn off men, has but when she accidentally runs into a lost James (who is pretending to be a marketing exec on a retreat), she makes a pass--and is turned down. She starts writing a guide book to the island.
Then things kick off. The reporter who ruined the wedding shows up, and starts looking for them. Lara sees him and flips, and goes into hiding, but the planners don't want to make a bigger mess than they need to, so they hire Katie to stand in during the ceremony so the wedding can go as planned and the paparazzi that Katie's mom has sold the story to will have something to distract them while they try to set up a second (third) real wedding. The townsfolk react to the influx of people with hospitality and economics.
So James figures out that something is up and the planners lock them in a room so he won't go looking for Lara and make things worse. While they're yelling and sniping at each other, and starting to bond, he sends out the makeup people to find Lara. Lara doesn't want to be found, though, and disguises herself as an old local woman. She meets the reporter who ruined the first marriage, and he admits that while he's been stalking her, he's gotten all sorts of pictures that he considered too private to sell, so he didn't, because he's fallen in love with her.
James and Katie realize that they've actually signed the paperwork with their real names and so they're actually, accidentally married, legally. He wants out, and to find Lara and fix everything, so they start across the island to figure it out, but while they're going, he has to rescue her from drowning, and he gets charmed by the island and the people. Lara bonds with Katie's mom, who she'd previously hated for selling the story--she only wanted the money because she's sick and she wanted to see the world before she dies. James and Lara are reunited, but not before Katie has confessed that she's fallen for him and she wishes he'd stay.
Skip forward some. Lara has made up for being horrible to Katie's mom by helping her see the world. Katie is packed up and leaving the island again, on her way to the Far East for a job. And just as she sets off on the boat, she sees James, arriving back on the island. He dedicated his latest book to her--the one he couldn't write before because Lara blocked him--and it's basically him working out that he wants to come back and stay with her, the only person he ever actually married. They just let the press believe that he and Lara were married to get some privacy.
Happily Ever After.
It's very coherent, it's incredibly sweet, and I think I have a girl-crush on Katie MacDonald now. David Tennant was perfect (even accounting for my bias) in the role of someone who has become snooty but isn't really, deep down inside. No one is really hateful, and even the side-relationships, the ones that normally in recent RomComs would have been strident and horrible, were pretty sweet. And there's just enough reality and sadness that it isn't sappy. Plus, it's a fairly realistic view of what it's like to be a writer--she's writing catalogues and guide books because it's the only work she can find in the field, and he's written one book people love but is totally blocked because of his sudden esteem, and both figure it out by the end. It's perfectly hopeful and optimistic.
