BEFORE: Finally, Oscar season draws to a close with TCM's last day of programming tomorrow, March 3, the main topic is "Stage to Screen", followed by a face-off for "Best Costume Winner (Edith Head)" and then "Favorite Epic Soap Opera":
5:00 am "A Midsummer Night's Dream" (1935)
7:30 am "Pygmalion" (1938)
9:30 am "Our Town" (1940)
11:00 am "Abe Lincoln in Illinois" (1940)
1:00 pm "Baby Doll" (1956)
3:00 pm "Mourning Becomes Electra" (1947)
6:00 pm "California Suite" (1978)
8:00 pm "Sabrina" (1954)
10:00 pm "The Heiress" (1949)
12:15 am "Raintree County" (1957)
3:15 am "Giant" (1956)
I think I can only claim three here - "Abe Lincoln in Illinois", "California Suite", and "Giant", but it hardly matters, I'm proud of my stats this year. Another 3 out of 11 gets me to a final score of 151 seen out of 352, which is 42.9%.
Six more days of romance films, and then that programming will be over, too. Katherine Heigl carries over from "Jenny's Wedding". Oh, great, more weddings today.
THE PLOT: After serving as a bridesmaid 27 times, a young woman wrestles with the idea of standing by her sister's side as her sibling marries the man she's secretly in love with.
AFTER: Essentially, this is a story about Jane, a woman who hasn't learned to speak up for herself - the fact that she serves as a bridesmaid for everyone who ask her to is just a vehicle to bring this part of her personality to our attention. Let's not forget that she does everything her boss asks her to, has put her personal life on hold for the sake of her career, and made who knows how many other sacrifices for her family and friends. What's it going to take for her to start thinking about herself? Apparently a lot of inconvenience and resentment, which eventually leads to self-loathing, and that's not going to stay contained for very long, one day it's all going to come out in an explosive fit of rage, right? When she finally channels all that resentment outward instead of inward.
But who says that being a bridesmaid automatically means you have to be treated like a doormat? I'd like to see the math on that one. Sure, the bride always comes first when it comes to decisions about the details of the ceremony and the reception, but if we all do that for too long, then that's how we ended up with Bridezillas in the first place. And who does that help?
Maybe this is why I put myself through this every February, watching way too many romance-themed films in a row - because once in a while, I find one that maybe has something to say, and it isn't just people meeting cute or having wacky misunderstandings that lead to people falling head-first into wedding cakes. I'm not saying this one's on the level of a Shakespeare play, but at least it points out that we can't just live our lives doing things for others, or constantly worrying about what other people think of us, and being afraid to express that we want things, too. Love is patient, love is kind, but love is also a bit inherently selfish. If you love someone, you really should tell them, or you could end up watching them marry somebody else, and that pain will be amplified tenfold if they marry your sister.
There's a riff off of "You've Got Mail" here, as Jane gets noticed at a wedding by Kevin, who's there writing about weddings for the New York Journal, and Jane, because she's so into the bridal lifestyle, reads his weekly "Commitments" column, but doesn't put two and two together because he (conveniently) writes under another name. So she's a fan of his writing, but can't stand him in the real world - sound familiar? But he's determined to wear her down, and we the audience can probably figure out he's the one she really needs to be with in the end - only it's a shame that the movie has to bend so far over backwards in order to make it happen, when really, we could have just got there via a more direct route.
I've got to call a NITPICK POINT, I think, on Jane serving as a bridesmaid for two different friends at two weddings at the same time, forcing her to take a cab back and forth between Manhattan and Brooklyn several times, changing clothes along the way. If you've ever taken a cab in NYC, assuming you can even FIND one that will take you to Brooklyn, let alone a driver that will let you change clothes in his cab, there's just no way. During a couple of, let's say, 3-hour weddings, she MIGHT have time to take a cab ride between them two or three times, but certainly not the 7 or 8 trips she takes back and forth here. Factor in bridge traffic on a busy Saturday night, and it's just not possible. Then we come to this issue - what kind of friend agrees to be in two simultaneous weddings, when she knows that bouncing back and forth would most likely mean she'd miss the best parts of both receptions while stuck in a cab? I could MAYBE accept this if both function rooms were a few blocks from each other, but in different boroughs? Fagedda bout it. (Yes, we're supposed to believe that Jane can't say "No" to being a bridesmaid, but the right thing to do would be to cancel on one of these obligations, or risk losing both friends.)
The fact that she saves all of her dresses after the ceremonies, and that they take up a whole closet in a Manhattan apartment, where space is no doubt at a premium, is probably another minor NITPICK POINT, and so is the fact that Jane leaves one room after a situation to scream loudly into what she thinks is an alley, and then somehow doesn't notice that she's entered another fiction room where an anniversary party is being held. (How did she NOT see this? And why is a party with old people positioned so closely next to a loud party in a nightclub, with no one complaining about the loud music?) For that matter, another NP is that many people these days use wedding planners, and fewer people rely on their bridesmaids and/or maids of honor for so much. Hey, everyone's busy, right? So for her to volunteer 27 times to be the main contact point for so many wedding details does stretch the limits of believability quite a bit.
But I'd rather point out that no newspaper anywhere would dare to run an article about someone, anyone, even in the "Commitments" column, without obtaining a proper release from the subject. Yes, the newspaper is there to print the events of the day, but a profile article would require a release, for fear of libel charges - so there's just no way that the Journal could run an article about her as a perennial bridesmaid, and she would be surprised by it. Could. Not. Happen.
Also starring James Marsden (last seen in "The D Train"), Malin Akerman (last seen in "Stolen"), Edward Burns (last seen in "The Holiday"), Judy Greer (last seen in "Wilson"), Melora Hardin (last seen in "Self/Less"), Brian Kerwin (last seen in "The Help"), Krysten Ritter (last seen in "What Happens in Vegas"), Michael Ziegfeld, Maulik Pancholy, David Castro, Peyton List, Charli Barcena.
RATING: 5 out of 10 "Mickey Mouse" pancakes
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