My Best Friend's Wedding (1997) Reviews

• Unscrupulous maid of honour produces neither comedy nor romance

  roghache2006-05-27

  This is a popcorn movie, a chick flick, that leaves a lot to be desired all around in the ethics department. Normally I am a huge fan of Julia Roberts but in this woeful tale, she fails to come across as her typical vulnerable and endearing self. The improbable plot revolves around a food critic, Julianne, who learns just days before the wedding that her long time best friend (and former lover), Michael, is about to be married to a lovely rich, blonde girl named Kimberly. In fact Michael invites Jules to be...no, not his best man...but the maid of honour. Jules flies from her home in New York to Chicago for the wedding, not to wish the newlyweds well, but instead to steal Michael away from Kimmy and make sure the wedding never comes off at all. She has four days in which to convince the unsuspecting groom that she herself, not Kimmy, is the bride for him. My first of many problems with this unlikely tale is that former lovers do not tend to make ideal best friends for all the reasons revealed in this movie, namely lingering passionate feelings and issues of jealousy. Furthermore, Jules's second best friend (as it were) is also a man...her editor, George, who conveniently happens to be gay. Does this girl not have any female friends at all, like most young women? Actually, George comes off as the character in the movie with probably the most integrity, which isn't saying a lot in this tale of immoral fluff. He's a true friend to Julianne, flying from afar to be with her and offer comfort. He indeed gives Jules sound advice, namely to just tell the guy she loves him, and later when it's obviously not working out, to graciously let Michael go. However, George is cast as the stereotypical homosexual friend, which has all been done to death by Hollywood. Jules pretends to be engaged to George in order to elicit jealousy from Michael (just one of her countless lies), but this fabrication doesn't seem to go anywhere. They never really officially undo the ruse. By the way, I love Dionne Warwick's singing but found the entire singalong at the rehearsal dinner just too silly. Jules is a stellar example of the old expression...With friends like her, who needs enemies? She's no friend at all to Michael (much less a BEST one), having no concern whatsoever for HIS happiness, until possibly the very end. Instead she's essentially nothing more than a jealous ex lover who lies, manipulates, and connives. Jules uses every trick in the book to split up Michael and his fiancée, including attempting to get Michael fired, allegedly at the behest of Kimmy and her dad. True, she repents of this horrendous deed, but it's hard to cheer for a "heroine" this unscrupulous. She doesn't get Michael in the end, nor does she deserve him. One gets the impression that this is not true love, but more a case of wanting what she cannot have. For some reason, Scarlett O'Hara came to mind while I was watching this. Michael is indeed handsome, but the description that comes to mind here is "jerk". Frankly, Kimmy can have him! I wouldn't want to marry a man that reminisced ad nauseum about old memories with a former girlfriend right in front of me four days before our wedding. Is he too clueless here to perceive how left out and potentially jealous Kimmy feels? I was practically waiting for him to bring up past sexual escapades with Jules and expect Kimmy to politely listen! Michael is surely one of the most insensitive grooms ever to grace the big screen. Also, he sort of leads Jules on, dancing rather romantically with her while they recall their old song. Not to mention jocular references to her about having seen her naked in the past. Not my idea of a nice platonic friendship for a man about to marry another woman. Personally, I was cheering for the loving bride to be, played to perfection by Cameron Diaz. Except that it's a little hard to buy her passive tolerance of her fiancé's rather unusual close friendship with his ex girlfriend or her colossal stupidity in not seeing through Jules's motivations from the start. Otherwise, she's definitely the sympathetic character of the piece, as when Jules sets out to humiliate her rival by insisting Kimmy sing at the karaoke bar, despite her vehement protests. Of course poor Kimmy is made to look like a female needing liberation when she announces that she's quitting college in the interests of her future husband and his career. Oh dear me no, it would never do for anyone entering a marriage to contemplate any sort of personal sacrifice! I found the whole ladies washroom scene near the end tasteless and ridiculous, when all the women are cheering on the potential verbal cat fight between Jules and Kimmy. Surely the screenwriters could have come up with better than this. Just an aside, what is the point of the pathetic ice sculpture joke other than to be crude? I normally love the romantic comedy genre, but the quality seems to be sadly deteriorating these days. This isn't the absolute worst movie I've ever seen but really, it isn't that amusing a comedy nor is it much of a romance. Hopefully Jules experiences a bit of personal growth, but that's about all that can be said for this story.

• A Frightening Comedy

  casamartinez012008-01-05

  It was difficult to root for Julia Roberts. It would have been like rooting for Joan Crawford in "Queen Bee" or Gene Tirney in "Leave Her To Heaven" She's a latent nasty piece of work. A woman, we're told, intelligent, successful, but her feelings are of the lowest most ignorant kind. I didn't believe it, sorry. Not believing spoiled the whole fun for me. I though the premise was tapping into the worst in us and that in a comedy is really frightening. I'm sure the director, producers etc didn't do it on purpose but they obviously didn't think the whole thing through. The success of the film is another frightening aspect. Frightening on two counts - or audiences are blind and unaffected by the potential evil here or I'm raving mad and I'm seeing things. Whatever the case, I saw it and it frightened me. Two major saving graces, maybe three. The cuteness of Cameron Diaz's performance, the beauty of Dermot Mulroney and a smashing Cary Grantish turn by Ruperet Everrett. Go at your own peril.

• Plot is despicable, no matter how much you like the "charming" players

  PudgyPandaMan2009-02-01

  I didn't like this film. The whole premise of a woman setting out to sabotage and destroy her best friend's wedding. Okay, so Julia Roberts plays the conniving woman - I guess that is supposed to make us fall in love with her and forget all the havoc she is wreaking. I for one didn't find it funny. In fact, most of the film annoyed me. Including, and especially, the stupid sing-along songs and those idiot twins. Okay, so they try to redeem the bad plot by having Julia not be successful in the end and we are all supposed to forgive her for being so ruthless - right? Wrong - it just didn't work for me. Not funny. Not funny. Still not funny...

• Rupert Everett salvages an otherwise dreadful movie

  mayfair2000-03-14

  In his role as Julia Roberts' gay friend George, Rupert Everett effortlessly steals the show--he is urbane and witty, wise and caring, and of course uproariously funny and drop-dead gorgeous. In contrast, "leading man" Dermot Mulroney appears crass, callow, and utterly devoid of charm or magnetism. This movie, billed as a comedy, has an element of mystery at its core: Why on earth would two such winners as Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz fight for the affections of such a dolt?! If not for Rupert Everett's performance, this movie would have rated a "1" for me!

• Why Doesn't Julia Roberts Just Get Some Female Friends?

  evanston_dad2009-07-17

  An unpleasant comedic vehicle for Julia Roberts about a woman who realizes too late that she's in love with her male best friend and decides to sabotage his engagement so she can have him for herself. Roberts is game, but the movie is pretty bad. It makes the main character so sadistically unpleasant that not only do you not root for her and her buddy (played by an unappealing Dermot Mulroney) to get together, you hope bad things happen to her to punish her for her crimes. Not a great set up for the character with whom we're forced to spend most of the movie. Cameron Diaz plays the fiancée as a perfect little blonde, and Rupert Everett plays Roberts' OTHER male best friend, this one gay, who looks bored to be in the movie. Grade: C-