My Best Friend's Wedding (97)

6/25/97

I can't figure out Julia Roberts. Since she's in every scene, you have to like her to enjoy this movie. But the thing is, it's impossible not to like her. I don't think she's attractive. She has nice eyes and huge hair, but with the exception of these two things, I'm not sure what the allure is. Having said that, I found it impossible to stop looking at her. She's hard to ignore. I think her acting has gotten better over the years, not that this film was a particular challenge to her. Anyways, MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING is a really good antidote to all the explosion movies that are out this summer.
Julianne Potter [Roberts] is a food critic. Although as the film goes on, and we see her eating hot dogs off a street cart and enjoying the buffet at a seafood restaurant, this fact is sort of forgotten. She gets a call from her oldest friend Michael [Mulroney]. His news is that he's fallen for some rich, Chicago woman [Diaz]. Roberts' editor is played by Rupert Everett, who was so charming that each and every woman I've spoken with about the film wants to have his baby. Roberts realizes that she loves Michael and has to break of the marriage in three short days. She could either tell the truth to Michael or go about breaking them up in a more round-about method. It's a film based on the fact that Julia can't tell someone how she feels. There are funny moments, but none of the big laughs are based on anything realistic. A song in a restaurant, an ice sculpture.
There were some real problems technically also. There is a credit sequence of a woman dressed as a bride surrounded by three bridesmaids and they lip sinc to a song. We never see the four of them again, indeed this sequence had nothing whatsoever with the rest of the movie. There is a scene when Julia storms into a lavish brunch. Watch her sunglasses carefully. She has a pair over her eyes, and another hanging from her sweater. Later she has a pair on her head and on her sweater, then on her eyes and on her head. Is this a character trait of all New Yorkers? They have to have two pairs on their person at all times. So we got that. Then, there's a scene where she's smoking in a hotel hallway. She ends up on her back and some of the ashes fall into her hair. The next second the ashes are gone, and then at the next cut, they're back.
If you hate Julia, stay away from this movie. It was enjoyable, and there were no explosions [there was a car chase, however], but that doesn't mean that this movie was any smarter than Batman/Jurassic/ConAir.
Julia Roberts [Mystic Pizza, Steel Magnolias, Pretty Woman, Flatliners, Sleeping With The Enemy, Hook, The Player, The Pelican Brief, Pret-a-Porter, Friends (TV)] Dermot Mulroney [Young Guns, Longtime Companion, The Thing Called Love, Point Of No Return, How To Make An American Quilt, Copycat] Cameron Diaz [The Mask, The Last Supper, She's The One] Rupert Everett [Real Life, The Comfort Of Strangers, Pret-a-Porter, The Madness Of King George] Philip Bosco [Trading Places, The Pope Of Greenwich Village, Heaven Help Us, The Money Pit, The Mission, Children Of A Lesser God, Three Men And A Baby, Suspect, Working Girl, Quick Change, Blue Steel, True Colors, Straight Talk, Tribeca (TV), Nobody's Fool, Against The Wall (HBO), Baseball (PBS)] The Omnipresent M Emmet Walsh [Serpico, Slap Shot, The Jerk, The Fish That Saved Pittsburgh, Ordinary People, Brubaker, Reds, Silkwood, The Pope Of Greenwich Village, Blood Simple, Fletch, Back To School, Raising Arizona, The Milagro Beanfield War, Clean And Sober, The Mighty Quinn, Narrow Margin, Chattahoochee, The Civil War (PBS), Baseball (PBS), Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, A Time To Kill, Romeo and Juliet] Rachel Griffiths Carrie Preston Susan Sullivan Paul Giamatti [Singles, Sabrina, Mighty Aphrodite, Private Parts] Cinematography by Laszlo Kovacs [Easy Rider, Close Encounters Of The Third Kind, Paradise Alley, F.I.S.T., Inside Moves, The Toy, Frances, Ghostbusters, Mask, Legal Eagles, Say Anything..., Shattered, Visions Of Light: The Art Of Cinematography, Radio Flyer, Free Willy 2: The Adventure Home, Copycat, Multiplicity] Written by Ronald Bass [Gardens Of Stone, Rain Man, Sleeping With The Enemy, The Joy Luck Club, When A Man Loves A Woman, Waiting To Exhale] Directed by P.J. Hogan [Muriel's Wedding]
40 critics 6.3
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