By COLLEEN HAWKESFORD of the Weyburn Review
Right from the opening credits, My Best Friend's Wedding , new
on home video, can and will be branded a "chick flick."
As the credits role at the beginning, a bride and her three bridesmaids (bedecked in pastel shades) slowly dance and parade with their bouquets, lip-synching to Dusty Springfield's "Wishing and Hoping."
It's an incredibly cheesy scene and immediately gets the viewer involved in the light, comedic mood of the show.
The movie stars Julia Roberts as Jules, a food critic from New York. Jules receives a call from her best friend Michael (Dermot Mulroney) whom she hasn't seen in years and who tells her he's getting married in four days.
The news comes as a great shock to Jules, who discovers that she harbors more-than-just-friendly feelings towards Michael. So she sets off to destroy his marriage to Kim (Cameron Diaz).
That's the basis of the whole movie: Michael is marrying Kim, Jules refuses to believe he could love anyone else but her, and tries to convince him of that fact while discrediting Kim.
Unfortunately Kim decides she wants Jules to be her maid of honor. So between dress fittings and luncheons with the relatives, Jules convinces Kim to ask Daddy (owner of a cable news network and pro ball team - hmm) to get Michael a job in his public relations firm.
Of course, being the faithful and upstanding young reporter that he is, Michael refuses the flack job and becomes outraged at Kim's suggestion - the plan is working perfectly for Jules.
But then Kim starts the waterworks, begs Michael to come back, and the two quickly make up (and out) in front of Jules in a restaurant. As the camera focuses on Jules' face, the look of shock and disgust that registers lets the audience know the string of curses going through her head without her making a sound.
She then decides to make Michael jealous by telling him she is engaged to George, her editor, who, up until that point, was gay. A little annoyed at Jules for having put him in such a position, George decides to have fun in his new role and ham it up for the in-laws at the wedding practice and supper. He tells them he met Jules in a mental institution while talking with Jerry, a man who believed he was Dionne Warwick. This revelation triggers a spontaneous sing-along of Warwick's "Together, Forever" in the middle of Barry the Cuda's seafood restaurant.
Roberts gives a surprisingly believable and funny performance as the stubborn, quirky Jules. Not since Pretty Woman has she commanded such a comedic role. Her timing on physical humor, such as when Michael tells her he's getting married and she falls off the bed, is dead-on, and she delivers her lines with punch and pizzazz.
The character of Jules is not a hard one to figure out. Bossy, commanding and used to getting her way, she doesn't think she needs anyone in the world except herself. She's had a string of relationships with men including Michael, and casts them off when she thinks she no longer needs them.
She treats Michael, the one who hung around, like her own personal property. Whether she knows it or not, Jules is not driven to break up Michael and Kim because she loves him; she just wants her property back.
Diaz gives a great performance as Kim. She comes across as a spineless ditz who has given up all she believes in so she can be with a lowly sports reporter - easy prey for experienced and worldly Jules. But try to take that lowly sports reporter away and Kim's core of steel is revealed as she fights to get him back.
While it may not be an Oscar-winner at next year's awards show,
My Best Friend's Wedding is a light-hearted, almost-romance that,
despite it's utter pinkness and frivolity, both sexes can enjoy.
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