Retro on Retro: My Best Friend’s Wedding

My Best Friend’s Wedding is one of the worst rom-coms I’ve ever seen — it’s problematic and somewhat boring.

My Best Friend’s Wedding follows Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts), a 27 year-old New York City restaurant critic, as she tries to sabotage the wedding of her best friend, Micheal O’Neal (Dermot Mulroney). Julianne and Micheal made a pact in college where if they weren’t married by the time they were both 28 years old, they would marry each other. However, three weeks before Julianne’s 28th, Micheal calls her to tell her that he’s getting married in four days to Kimmy Wallace (Cameron Diaz), a 20 year-old University of Chicago student and the daughter of the owner of the Red Sox.

Julianne Potter is not a likeable character. I don’t even think that she was created to be liked. Although Julia Roberts does a wonderful job playing the character, Julianne has very questionable morals. For instance, as a way to make Micheal jealous, Julianne tells everyone that George Downes (Rupert Everett), her gay editor and friend, is her fiance; she does this without ever consulting George and makes him go through with the plan, all while George was trying to help her. Although I appreciate the screenplay attempts to subvert typical romantic-comedy plotlines by having Julianne as a villain and rejecting the quintessential happy ending as a result.  

Diaz’s portrayal of Kimmy was wonderful; from the moment we meet her, she captures the audience’s attention. The concept of a food writer and a sports writer falling in love sounds absolutely adorable, and, initially, I was rooting for Julianne (before I realized how narcissistic she is), but Kimmy won me over at the end. Kimmy’s naiveness and absentmindness becomes sympathetic, which could have been annoying if poorly acted. 

There is a dark undertone to everything that happens, which could have been an incredibly effective discussion about gender and marriage or commentary on how certain types of love can ruin a person. However, it fell short, mostly because of the ending. Regardless of all the issues present in their relationship, Kimmy and Micheal get married. Julianne, after accepting their marriage, neglects all the problems she saw before, such as Kimmy reluctantly dropping out of school to support Micheal’s career as a sports-writer or the fact that Micheal is a complete asshole to Kimmy. This is never mentioned again and I wished we got some resolution on Kimmy’s lack of agency. I can understand that this film may be calling out sexist plotlines in romantic comedies, but I question if this movie is actually that self-aware.

Also, the pacing of the film is rather strange. It starts off slow, then it rushes through important details or doesn’t mention them at all, and then everything ends rather anti-climatically.

My Best Friend’s Wedding tries to be The Graduate, but, instead, it’s more of a Hallmark Channel movie. There are better romantic comedies out there — and I will gladly watch one of those!