My Best Friend's Wedding
A 1997 Romantic Comedy starring Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz. Julia Roberts plays Julianne Potter, a restaurant critic from New York who, turning 28, realizes she's getting dangerously close to being stale Christmas Cake. In college, her best friend, Michael O' Neal, and she made a pact that the two of them would marry if neither of them were married by the time they reached 28. He calls close to her birthday... only to tell her that he's found a pretty, wealthy, cheerful young bride in the person of Kimberly Wallace (Cameron Diaz), who wants her to be her maid of honor. She heads to Chicago, to not only become said maid, but also sabotage the wedding and get Michael for herself. Hilarity Ensues.
The film opened, embarrassingly, behind Batman and Robin in theaters. It did receive mostly positive reviews, though.
Tropes used in My Best Friend's Wedding include:
- Adult Child: Kimberly.
- The Beard: Julianne asks George, her Gay Best Friend, to pretend to be her boyfriend to make Michael jealous.
- Best Woman: According to Michael's father, Julianne was close to becoming one.
- Bittersweet Ending: Although the characters that end up unhappy probably deserve it because of their actions in the movie.
- Broken Aesop: Ladies, you don't need a physically fulfilling relationship to be happy; your Pet Homosexual is more than willing to be your pseudo-boyfriend forever.
- Unfortunate Implications: You're a gay guy in a romantic comedy? You ONLY exist to hook up your white straight girl friend with the boy of her dreams, even if you think the whole deal is freaking stupid and you're actually right!
- Chick Flick
- Childhood Marriage Promise: College, but still all the trope entails.
- Christmas Cake: Julianne. In a subversion, she didn't care THAT much... until Michael told her "I'm getting married to Kim, whooo!"
- Clingy Jealous Girl: Julianne, too.
- Cool Big Sis: Kim really wants Julianne to become this to her. Little did she know...
- Crowd Song: "Together Forever", sung by stuffy rich folks at a luncheon.
- Derailing Love Interests: Averted, Julianne in particular acts like an absolute psycho bitch through the film, and the script is not shy about how bitchy she is... But that is the point.
- And deconstructed too, because characters who usually try this more often than not escape consequences... but here Julianne gets completely chewed out. The Gay Best Friend constantly tells her her idea is stupid, the Nice Guy is upset when Hell breaks loose, and when the Villain Protagonist has to confront The Ojou on the shit she did to her, all the women in the scene side with said Ojou and call the other girl "bitch", "slut" and "couple breaker" in the most hilariously awesome way ever possible.
- Did Not Get The Guy
- Fag Hag: Julianne.
- Focus Group Ending: Originally, Julianne got together with a random guy at the wedding reception, but audiences didn't like it, so a new ending where her gay friend George comforts her was made instead.
- Julianne dancing with George actually was the originally planned ending, but the studio forced them to change it because they didn't think it would be satisfying enough. Turns out they were wrong, so the original ending got used after all.
- Fourth Date Marriage: Part of the reason Julianne is so mad that he'd marry Kimberly, since he barely knew her at all while she and Michael have been friends for years already.
- Green-Eyed Epiphany
- Hair of Gold: Kimberly.
- Heel Realization: At one point, Julianne even says "I'm the bad guy."
- Helium Speech: The boys sing a ballad with helium sucked from the wedding's balloons.
- Heroic BSOD: Happens to Kim, when Julianne kisses Michael. The poor girl runs away in tears and disappears.
- Irrevocable Message: Julianne sends an e-mail from Michael's account in an attempt to cause trouble between him and Kim. She realizes how wrong it was once it's too late.
- Ivy League for Everyone
- Manic Pixie Dream Girl: Kimberly being a good example.
- Must Make Amends: Julianne forcibly kisses Michael. Kimberly catches them, believes he's cheating on her, and runs away in the middle of an Heroic BSOD. Julianne realizes that Michael really cares for Kim, so she's the one who has to convince Kim to come back for Michael's sake.
- Though by the time the two met again, Kim had already decided to fight back for Michael. Most of what Julianne did at that point was to assure her that Michael had no clue what was going on, and to let Kim know that she was giving up.
- Protagonist Journey to Villain: Jules's schemes get more diabolical and mean-spirited as the film goes on to the point where she is basically a Villain Protagonist. She does get better by the end.
- Relationship Sabotage: The whole plot is about Julianne's attempt at this.
- Romantic False Lead: A remarkable case, for the reason mentioned below.
- Villain Protagonist: The major gimmick of the film is having the Romantic False Lead as the main character.
- What the Hell, Hero?: As said before, the script does not try to pass Julianne's actions as acceptable, and that goes double for the characters after she kisses Michael. Which leads to a rather funny scene in a ladies bathroom:
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Kim: You kissed my boyfriend! |
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