Riotous un-romantic comedy – and a classic for so many reasons.
Yes, it originated the straight-woman-with-gay-male-friend trope in popular culture (Will & Grace owes more to this film than just its redhead/brunette lead duo), but My Best Friend’s Wedding gave us something else too: a smash-hit romantic comedy where the girl doesn’t get the guy – and we still come out of it happy.
Or, more pointedly: it’s a story where unhinged behaviour isn’t rewarded purely because it’s the protagonist’s – even if we laughed at it all the way. Plus, everyone in this is great: Cameron Diaz shines in the bathroom confrontation scene; Rupert Everett as George, who (in his own words) is “sleek, stylish, rrradiant with charisma”, and who leads the film’s biggest musical number; and Julia Roberts as Julianne, doing perhaps her best work outside of Erin Brockovich (2000), in the role which, as Bridget Jones’ Diary (2001) About A Boy (2002) did for Hugh Grant, unlocked her true star power: the rogue, the rascal, the deeply flawed anti-romantic. Unlike Julianne’s unrequited and ultimately purely selfish desire for Michael (Dermot Mulroney), it’s Julianne’s relationship with George which the film ultimately proffers as the healthiest: he calls her on her shit and is always there for her.
Like the best romantic comedies, it’s unromantic.
Perhaps My Best Friend’s Wedding works as well as it does is because it’s fun to see Julia “Pretty Woman” Roberts playing a monster – and that she seems to be having fun doing it. Like the best romantic comedies (I’m looking at you, When Harry Met Sally…), My Best Friend’s Wedding is unromantic: it pulls apart behaviours often idealised as being “romantic”, and exposes the sometimes misguided, harmful, or unhealthy effects and motivations that can lie beneath. And that’s what makes it great. It’s hilarious, it’s biting, and it has Burt Bacharach songs.
This isn’t even the first time director P.J. Hogan managed this: Muriel’s Wedding (1994) is about a girl (Toni Collette) sociopathically obsessed with getting (as opposed to being) married, only to ultimately run off with her best friend (Rachel Griffiths, who’s also in this film as one of the bridesmaids). It’s hilarious, it’s biting, and it has ABBA songs.
Further Viewing
Writer Ron Bass describes how an alternate, studio-mandated “happier” ending bombed with test audiences, which allowed him to pitch the ending the film ultimately got:
Make it a double-feature of outstanding rom-coms, with a When Harry Met Sally… (1989) chaser: