Thanks to a charming performance from Julia Roberts and a subversive spin on the genre, My Best Friend's Wedding is a refreshingly entertaining romantic comedy.
Thanks to a charming performance from Julia Roberts and a subversive spin on the genre, My Best Friend's Wedding is a refreshingly entertaining romantic comedy.
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Average Rating: 3.3/5
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A woman realizes that friends can be lovers, but now has to convince the friend in question in this romantic comedy. Michael O'Neal (Dermot Mulroney) and Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts) were romantically involved in college, and after breaking up, they have managed to remain close friends. For years, Julianne and Michael have had a pledge that if both were single when they turned 28, they would get married. Shortly before her 28th birthday, Julianne is lamenting the sad state of her love life
when she gets a call from Michael, who announces that he has important news. Julianne is convinced that Michael is going to ask her to marry him, and she is crestfallen when he announces that he's engaged to Kimmy Wallace (Cameron Diaz). Kimmy seems like the perfect woman for Michael; she's sweet, pretty, bright, and adores Michael, and her wealthy family is just as fond of him as she is. But now that Julianne has realized how much she loves Michael, she's not about to give him up without a fight -- and isn't afraid to fight dirty. Julianne's uneasy ally in the battle for Michael's affections is her friend and editor George Downes (Rupert Everett), a cheerfully out-of-the-closet homosexual who is not prepared when Julianne asks him to pose as her boyfriend. ~ Mark Deming, Rovi
The draggy narrative of this 1997 comedy is tough to sit through -- there are even several overproduced musical numbers -- but it does have an intriguing subversive element that I don't want to give away.
Anchored by skilled comedienne Julia Roberts, this skewered variation on jealousy and the wrong woman doing battle in the aisles is a winning balance of the familiar and the novel.
Every once in a long while, along comes a refreshing change like My Best Friend's Wedding, a movie whose appeal rests largely on its knack for defying our expectations by riffing off, even undermining, a familiar genre.
This amiable comedy may not be hugely sophisticated, but Hogan does manage to make his attractive leads look like complete idiots, no mean achievement in image-obsessed Hollywood.
For those of us not so enthralled with Ms. Roberts, you'll have to endure the movie, but will be mildly entertained with good, old music and some stellar comedy provided almost entirely by Rupert Everett.
This delightful comedy about love, friendship and the hazards of lying comes not a moment too soon for anyone overwhelmed by the current glut of summer movie mayhem.
[The film's] virtues...make such a vivid and appealing impression that we forget, ignore, or fail even to notice those elements that are less successful.
Not only does this modern-day screwball romp manage to be romantic and comical, it also offers Julia Roberts a chance to shine again in the kind of movie that she does best.
What's interesting here is that Roberts, the ex-girlfriend (at the wedding only to break it up), is someone smart, charming and "totally above such drama". We find out as she does (ala the screwball comedies of old) just how far she'll go to achieve her will ... and she's supposedly "not like that at all". Maybe
she's driven to it as this is one of those films where folks break out into popular song whenever and so one can sympathize with her temporary insanity in this funny crowd pleaser from the good ol'days of 1997.
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