Bride Wars
As
with most men, the lust for the perfect wedding is lost on me.
I
never got the overly ostentatious dresses, the flowers, the garters, the
need for drunken revelry, chicken or fish, bad bands, the line dances, the
cakes that cost more than a car, the tossing of the bouquet, the something
borrowed and something blue. It makes the head spin.
Most guys would just as soon have some good friends meet them at a bar for
the ceremony.
Yet
I do understand that a wedding is something that certain women spend their
whole lives fantasizing of – hell I’ve had enough exes who told me
this to know it’s pretty
common.
However, Hollywood has picked up on women’s bride-lust and has been cranking
out wedding movies more and more over the last decade or so. Each one has a
very slight gimmick to slightly differentiate itself from all the others,
but with very few exceptions they are all basically alike.
Obsess about the bride, the minutiae of the ceremony (the groom
really doesn’t matter, he just has to be there to fill out the picture),
have the wedding nearly be cancelled and eventually the bride will realize
that this isn’t all just queen for a day – it is all about love.
This
one’s little quirk is that it is essentially the equivalent of that stupid
reality TV series Bridezillas.
Bride Wars is
Anne Hathaway’s second wedding movie in a few months, and while Rachel
Getting Married was far from perfect, it was light years better than
this. Frankly, Hathaway is too good an actress to do this film. Sadly, at
this point in Kate Hudson’s career, you can’t say the same for her – she’s
done entirely too many of these cartoonish light comedies in recent years.
Bride Wars is
an hour-and-a-half of sub-situation comedy hijinks, followed up by an overly
obvious climax which not only seems like the easy way out but also leads to
a final voiceover which directly contradicts everything the audience had
been watching most of the movie.
Yet,
I do have to admit, though Bride Wars certainly is not a good movie,
I didn’t hate it as much as I probably should have.
This
probably is directly attributable to the fact that the actresses are both
very likable - even Hudson, who hasn't really made
a good movie since her debut in Almost Famous
about a decade ago.
Now
when I say that, I am talking about the actresses
themselves, not the characters that they are playing. The characters
are pretty horrifying, but Hathaway and Hudson are often able to overcome
this shortcoming. Hathaway is even talented enough to actually smuggle a
few real live emotions into the comic-strip-level
narrative.
The
story of this film – giving it the benefit of the doubt that there is an
actual plotline here rather than just a plot
device – has two lifelong best friends who mistakenly get booked for
weddings at the Plaza Hotel on the same day. Getting married in June at the
Plaza is both of the their lifelong dreams
– in fact, they barely speak of anything else in the movie – so before you
can say wacky complications, the two brides are sniping at each other.
Of
course there are several relatively simple solutions. Since they are best
friends, they could do a dual wedding. Or if that is so horrible, one
of them could get married in July or August.
Even, God forbid, one might have to give up on the fantasy of marriage at
the Plaza. Let’s face it, as a New York City
schoolteacher; there is no way in hell Hathaway’s character could afford the
ceremony, anyway…
However, instead the two supposed best friends get into a war of practical
jokes trying to destroy the other’s wedding.
I
did mention they were best friends, right?
We
have one sending anonymous candy to the girl
who used to have a weight problem. One
starting rumors that the other is pregnant. One
sabotages the other’s spray tan to turn her skin
orange. The other
fools with the dye at a beauty shop to get her friend’s hair to turn blue.
I did mention they were life-long
best friends, didn't I?
I love the Plaza, but it's not that
nice.
The
men in their lives – who really don’t matter anyway,
they're just there to fit the tuxes – try to be moderators
to this fight and are totally ignored. Then,
one very suddenly becomes a total asshole for no
apparent reason and with no real foreshadowing
– it just
gets
the screenwriters out of a the corner they painted themselves into.
In the meantime, another male character is waiting in the wings to be the
obvious consolation prize.
It’s
dumb. It’s manipulative. It’s ridiculous.
It’s
honestly a bit patronizing to the audience that they are targeting.
Only the clear star quality of Hathaway (and,
to a lesser extent, Hudson) makes it at all
bearable.
Worst of all, in the end the movie broadly hints there
could be a sequel which will undoubtedly be
called something stupid like
Mommy Wars.
Stop
the insanity. Ignore Bride Wars and maybe the whole thing will go
away.
Jay S. Jacobs
Copyright ©2009 PopEntertainment.com.
All rights reserved. Posted: April 14, 2009.
