Honestly, this idea of a woman needing a fake fiance/husband/steady beau and “hiring” somebody to “play” the part has to be an invention of the movies. If there are real businesses that provide “The Boyfriend Experience” without the “gigolo” contract rider, they have to have been inspired by the movies, which have beaten the “profession” to death.

The concept seemed kind of old hat when “The Wedding Date” with Debra Messing and Dermot Mulroney came out almost 20 years ago.

So here is “Rent-a-Groom,” a limp updating of the formula that was pushed to its most amusing extreme in “The Proposal,” with every variation from “Green Card” and “Pretty Woman” to “The Perfect Date” having preceded it.

Canadian Kylee Bush plays an account exect at a small publishing house whose star author happens to be her dying granny (Sherri Dahl), the widowed romance novelist who raised her. Grandma Maggie has a health scare over lunch and the only thing that revives her is the gushed-out news that Tracy has a beau and she’s about to get married.

“I’m ENGAGED!”

The curative power of something to look forward to revives Granny. And it upsets the applecart at the office, where news spreads and Tracy’s clingy/stalker bro-boss (Kelsey Flower) refuses to believe it.

Pushy “It isn’t how you die, it’s how you live” Granny insists on meeting the fellow. So Rob Humphries ( Stafford Perry, a veteran of episodic TV) is summoned from “Rent a Groom.” He’s an actor, naturally. Tracy gives him a bland backstory — accountant, etc. And the meeting comes off.

Being an actor, Rob-renamed-“Jones” for this “role improvises a “meet cute” story and other lies on the fly.

When Granny starts high-handedly pushing the couple into engagement parties and the like, he even handles the interrogation from Kylee’s HR disaster boss well enough.

And…well, you know how this goes. Everybody does. There’s little surprising even in the “secret” Rob has and the assorted complications thrown at the couple on their way from transactional to romantic relations.

One bizarre bit of business — Rob does a lot of commercials, but worked on some streaming series and is chased around the park, restuarants and the like by fans who want him to “come back” to the show.

It’s unaffecting, unamusing, with only the script ordaining that the leads have chemistry and only the “tests” they face in the third act differing from a hundred other variations of this weary formula.

Script, direction, wardrobe, there’s nothing that stands out from anybody involved here that merits going on one’s resume.

Rating: unrated, quite chaste.

Cast: Kylee Bush, Stafford Perry, Sherri Dahl, Chantelle Han and Kelsey Flower.

Credits: Directed by Jason Wan Lim, scripted by
Steve Goldsworthy. A Vertical release on Amazon Prime.

Running time: 1:30