BEFORE: This will bring the Dermot Mulroney portion of the proceedings to an end (perhaps you saw this one coming...) and it's also the last of my four wedding-themed films this month - I covered "My Big Fat Greek Wedding", "The Big Wedding" and "The Wedding Date" (a couple other films like "The Heartbreak Kid" covered weddings and engagements, but those were the big four). Just four films left in the romance chain after this one, so the end is definitely in sight.
AFTER: Talk about sticking to an unplanned theme - I've been looking at deception's place in romance films, and this would seem to be the ultimate expression of that. Here a woman can't seem to tell the truth to her long-time best male friend, so she keeps telling lie upon lie and digging the hole she's in deeper and deeper. The situation gets more and more out of control, which I guess is supposed to be comic, but really when you step back and take a look at it, there's not much funny about the situation.
Let's start with the fact that she flies to Chicago under the pretenses of attending the wedding, but she's really there to prevent it from happening. Not cool. If you root for Julia Roberts' character in this film, there may be something wrong with you. Then when she gets a chance to tell her friend how she feels, she can't do it. Instead she gets her gay male friend to pose as her own boyfriend, in order to make him jealous. Whether this plan is feasible or not, whether it works or not, it doesn't matter. A lie is a lie, and lying only makes the situation worse, whatever it is.
More lies are told when she tries to sow discord between her friend and his bride, even resorting to corporate espionage, and later grand theft auto. Will this woman stop at nothing to get what she wants? How selfish can a woman possibly be? Pretty selfish, it turns out. In what way is all this lying, cheating and stealing better or easier than having an honest conversation? I mean, even if she wins the guy back, eventually he's going to find out what she did to destroy his previous relationship, and then where will they be?
Nope, the rules don't seem to apply to this woman, everything is fair game. But she had her shot with this guy, and she blew it! That's on her, right? I guess it's a very specific revelation, realizing that this man is her soul-mate - somehow she knows it now, but she couldn't see it before? Unless it just stems from jealousy, seeing him about to marry someone else, and that means it doesn't come from a pure, happy place, it comes from a mean, spiteful place.
If you suddenly realize that someone you love, someone you should have married, is about to marry someone else, the polite thing to do is to attend the wedding, be friendly, wait for the divorce and catch him or her on the rebound. What's so difficult about that?
NITPICK POINT: The groom's best friend wasn't available? She didn't answer her phone for a month? Who does that? I just know that if my best friend is unreachable, I'm not moving ahead with wedding plans until I hear from him. This seemed very contrived, setting up the franticness that prompted the emergency "I'll just go bust up that wedding" plan. Because if she had a month to prepare and devise a better, more calculated plan, that would just have come across as even more mean-spirited, right? But instead, that leads me to:
NITPICK POINT #2: Same-day travel? From New York to Chicago? OK, it's not a long flight, but don't the airlines get all fare-rapey when you have to book a flight for the same day? Aren't those the most expensive plane tickets you can buy, even if you go economy class? And this happened not once, but 3 or 4 times during the film, people either flying on extremely short notice, or cancelling their flights, like it's no big deal. Apparently everyone here is extremely wealthy, or else these situations were not realistic at all. Unless everyone flew on standby or used Priceline, which I doubt.
Also starring Julia Roberts (last seen in "Notting Hill"), Cameron Diaz (last seen in "A Life Less Ordinary"), Rupert Everett (last seen in "A Midsummer Night's Dream"), Rachel Griffiths (last seen in "Saving Mr. Banks"), Carrie Preston (last seen in "Cradle Will Rock"), Susan Sullivan, Philip Bosco (last seen in "Shadows and Fog"), Christopher Masterson, M. Emmet Walsh (last seen in "Cold Turkey"), with cameos from Paul Giamatti (also last seen in "Saving Mr. Banks"), Harry Shearer (last seen in "Dick"), Chelcie Ross (last seen in "The Last Boy Scout").
RATING: 4 out of 10 ice sculptures
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