Does the economic down-turn make us require more from a Chick Flick: A look at Bride Wars…
Bride Wars
Opens: Today- January 9, 2009
Director: Gary Winick
MPAA: PG
Starring: Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Kristen Johnston, Steve Howey, Candice Bergen, Chris Pratt, Bryan Greenberg
Tonight, in a rather cynical mood, I wandered over to the theater to watch Bride Wars. Americans are losing their jobs, newspapers are filing bankruptcy, and a financial doomsday seems to be around the corner, etc. etc.
Well, what is the purpose of many chick flicks if not to distract us from real life? They transport us to a place where designer handbags, cute men, fun shoes, girl-time, and cocktails abound. Our current times make a movie like Bride Wars seem silly.
Bride Wars starts off just good enough. Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) have been friends since childhood. As young Jersey girls, they witnessed a wedding at the Plaza Hotel in NYC while having lunch with their mothers. They both embraced the goal of one day being a June bride at the Plaza.
Fast-forward 20+years. They both are in committed relationships and have maintained their strong friendship.
Liv is a successful attorney, and Emma is a teacher. Their respected career choices help to over emphasize their difference in personalities. Liv is a headstrong, cutthroat perfectionist, and Emma is the giving, gullible, pushover type.
Liv and Emma find themselves engaged within days of each other. This seems to be ideal. They will be each other’s Maid of Honor and plan their weddings together! Their first piece of business is to hire Marion St. Claire, wedding extraordinaire. Marion helps them both book separate weekend dates in June at the Plaza, but a clerical error has them both booked on the same day. With no other June dates open, Liv and Emma seek to nudge the other towards a different venue. Liv is sure that spineless Emma will cave. Emma protests that she has been saving up for “The Plaza” since she was sixteen! Liv protests that the Plaza is one of her only good childhood memories as both her parents are dead and won’t be able to see her get married. Bride Wars’ writers choose not to tell us how Liv’s parents died. This might have been a real chance to develop Liv’s character.
Bridal sabotage begins in the form of blood-orange spray tans, blue hair, jumbo cookie bouquets and hip-hop dance teachers, as each bride tries to ruin the others plans. I was looking forward to seeing Anne Hathaway in a dance-off with Kate Hudson as Emma crashes Liv’s bachelorette party. However, it was more entertaining to see Anne’s dance moves on the “Ellen” show this week.
Somewhere between all the bride wars, Emma’s fiance’ starts to show different colors. He seems relatively nice during the majority of the movie, but to force a conflict in the plot, he becomes the bad guy. Emma is having second thoughts of marriage but pushes onward.
Liv’s and Emma’s wedding day arrives. They both refuse to move their wedding, so they will both be getting married at the Plaza right across the hall from each other at 5pm. Minutes before they both walk down the aisle, Emma’s father comes to congratulate Liv and let her know how proud her parents would have been of her.
Liv’s final act of sabotage is to replace Emma’s video montage with embarrassing footage of a college trip gone wild. However, she has a change of heart and asks her Man of Honor to replace the video with Emma’s original copy. He doesn’t do it and instead tosses the original dvd in a flower arrangement. Thus, the embarrassing video plays as Emma walks down the aisle. Emma hits the roof!
Emma runs across the hall to Liv’s wedding just as Liv is walking down the aisle. A huge bridal brawl ends with tousled hair and layers of tulle between them. Emotions are spent and the girls have a moment of clarity and apologies are exchanged. One wedding is canceled and the rest you probably could predict.
Bride Wars ends with a pathetic set up for a sequel:(
“Bride Wars” is beautiful to watch: the flowers, the gowns, the city, Anne, and Kate. However, the dialogue is boring! Sure there are some one-liners in the movie, but we heard them all in the trailer. “Your wedding better watch it,” and “your wedding is going to be big…just like your A@# at prom,” are about the best they get.
There was a moment during a quick exchange between Emma and Fletch (her fiance’) about pep squads and shrieking teenage girls chanting “Be Aggressive,” in which I saw potential, but it was fleeting.
My recommendation- Make it a rental unless you are getting married soon or have unending devotion to Anne Hathaway or Kate Hudson.
Photo Credits: 20th Century Fox, Bridewars.com
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Nice review. Bride Wars wasn’t bad, but it wasn’t the best thing ever. It’s sad, but true though.