My Best Friend's Wedding Review

What do you call a romantic comedy that has most of the comedy coming from a homosexual? You call it My Best Friend's Wedding, of course. This cult status chick-flick of the late 90's is often today shown in... they showed in my Brit Lit class. Logic in that, please? I digress. This film is actually not at all bad, it's just not as funny as I expected. A movie about gender stereotypes clashing in a battle for a dude should be hilarious, but it only gets chuckles when the gay guy comes in (of course).

The story of this film is pretty simple: Jules (Julia Roberts) is a food critic who gets a call from an ex-boyfriend, Michael (Dermot Mulroney). He tells her that he's getting married to a girl named Kimberly (Cameron Diaz) and that he wants her to be his "best-woman". Jules gets jealous and goes on a quest to get her man back. She does this through a series of devious manipulations and just all-around being an idiot. Though this does sound like a very good idea for a comedy, it's very much an awkward, tough-for-guys-to-even-sit-through romance.

However, this doesn't mean that the movie is bad, necessarily. The chemistry between the characters actually feels genuine; when the tone needs to be romanic or light hearted, it feels genuinely romantic or light hearted. Though, male audiences be warned, this is one of the cheesiest movies ever made by mankind. There are songs; as in, not even musical numbers. The characters will just randomly break out into song. Also, there is a lot of elements of cornball, cheesy romance relationships but, if you can make it through the first 50 minutes or so, you shall be rewarded with some actual comedy.

Thus, we are introduced to that gay guy mentioned earlier and Jules' editor, George (Rupert Everett). He flies into Chicago where the wedding is to take place to give Jules some encouragement. He tells her to just go up to Michael and tell him she loves him. However, she tells Michael that George is her fiancé to try to make him jealous. This leads to an onslaught of hilarious scenes involving George touching her, subtly making fun of her and just all-around embarrassing her. There's even a scene in which he makes up a phony story about how they met in a mental hospital. The discomfort in her face and just that fact that he's doing this to teach her a lesson just gets you on the floor laughing. What really makes these scenes ingeniously comedic is that we're introduced to George before this as a dry, sharp-tongued guy. Now, this dry, gay man has to pretend to be a giddy, straight guy and we just couldn't possibly get enough. You can tell that Rupert Everett is having an absolutely fun time in every one of his scenes. Unfortunately, he's only in the film for about 20 minutes so, savor every moment.

I don't want to spoil anything, but I must say, the ending is one of the greatest endings I've ever seen in cinema. It's one of the rare times where the ending actually makes up for sitting through the past hour and a half of gushy, love stuff (yeah, I said it). In fact, the ending couldn't have the full effect it's supposed to unless you sit through the whole film. It not only teaches an important life lesson but, the ending is just a lot of fun and it's a nice heart-warming, satisfying finish to a movie like this.

Synopsis: My Best Friend's Wedding is not one of the greatest movies of all time. In fact, I'm surprised it has the following that it does. It's not as good as you've heard it to be. However, it does have a decent romance, a funny line/moment sometimes and, of course, George's we-wish-it-would-never-end 20 minutes of glorious hilarity. If nothing else, the ending alone makes it worth checking out for guys. It'll feel like a kidney stone while you're watching it but, the stone will pass. Ladies, if you liked The Princess Bride, you'll definitely like this.

Score: 6/10