Bride Wars
The wedding comedy has become something of a permanent fixture in Hollywood since My Best Friend's Wedding and The Wedding Singer hit screens a decade ago.
The wedding comedy has become something of a permanent fixture in Hollywood since My Best Friend's Wedding and The Wedding Singer hit screens a decade ago.
But not all of them are a joy to watch.
Bride Wars is one of those films that you know you're either going to love or hate just from the title alone.
The mere thought of the wife-to-be metamorphosing into Bridezilla is enough to make prospective grooms quake in their boots, so from the word go this is strictly a chick flick, unless the thought of Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway fighting in the aisle appeals.
Even then, women could well be affronted by the rather stereotypical versions of brides-to-be presented here.
Bride Wars is based on the premise that every young girl holds dear an image of her dream wedding, which in the case of best friends forever Liv (Hudson, who also produces) and Emma (Hathaway) is in New York's Plaza Hotel in June.
But when an administrative error by their wedding planner means they have to get married on the same day, the pair fall out in spectacular style and try to sabotage each other's big day.
Liv is the embodiment of a ball-breaking female lawyer who always gets her own way - at any cost - while Emma is a demure, selfless teacher, who can ill-afford her dream nuptials at the Plaza.
The film's opening sequence plays like an advert for the New York hotel, thanks to the use of stills to tell the back story of Liv and Emma's childhood friendship with narration by Marion St Claire (Candice Bergen), the wedding planner we haven't yet met.
Some 20 years before the film's main action, the two girls see a wedding at the Plaza and treasure a mislaid hairclip belonging to the bride as a keepsake in a special box dedicated to weddings - all illustrated in those outmoded stills.
This shapes their burning desire to walk down the aisle at the hotel, so when they both get engaged within days of one another - albeit with Liv bullying her fiance into proposing - they naturally book an appointment with New York's best and most expensive wedding planner.
The girls' fiances (Chris Pratt and Steve Howey) provide little more than a bemused backdrop to the crazed antics - including hair and tan sabotage - which are over-the-top when you think they could just agree to a joint wedding.
Hudson and Hathaway do the best they can with the rather tedious dialogue, but you don't much care for either character and very little in the film raises a laugh except when Liv's fiance Daniel (Howey) affectionately calls her an oversized blue smurf with her dyed blue hair.
The ending is predictable, especially after the women's journey of self-realisation, which sees them acknowledge their faults and in one case, question why they are even marrying.
Release Date: Friday 9 January 2009
Certificate: PG
Runtime: 89mins
