Do You Wanna Hang Your Head and Die?
Bride Wars / Dustin Rowles
Film Reviews | January 9, 2009 | Comments ()
Anne Hathaway plays Emma, a mousy, big-toothed school teacher, and the weakfish half of a best friend duo, opposite Kate Hudson’s Liv, an aggressive attorney who picked up some legal jargon TNT’s “Raising the Bar.” She is what people call Type A. Because their lives are so empty and meaningless, all they’ve ever wanted was to get married in “The Plaza” in June and have Marion St. Claire (Candice Bergen) be their wedding planner. They get engaged on successive days. Because of a scheduling mix-up, they are booked on the same day at “The Plaza.” Both refuse to change their wedding dates, and they refuse to seek the simple solution: A double wedding. They have a falling out. In order to bring meaning to their empty, sad little lives, they decide to be petty and sabotage one another’s wedding days. This is called the narrative hook. Emma gets increasingly aggressive; she dyes Liv’s hair blue and steals her best friend’s thunder at a bachelor party by dancing more sexually provocative than Liv. Liv begins to lose her aggressive streak; she switches Emma’s light-honey tanning cream with dark orange, then loses her edge at work, rolls over and cries. She places her hand on her sternum repeatedly to indicate sadness. Her fiancé supports her; he is a good guy. Emma’s husband is kind of a dick. Liv’s brother (Bryan Greenburg) is a good guy with an eye for Emma. Emma’s father is played by the guy who played Paulie in “Mad About You” (John Pankow). Kristen Johnson plays a self-absorbed drunk forced to fill in as Emma’s maid-of-honor after the falling out. Gary Winick (Tadpole), who was once thought to be talented, directs. He is no longer thought to be talented.
Bride Wars is a bad movie. It is a very, very bad movie. Do not go see it. Unless you are an older lady with a very low threshold for entertainment, you will regret it. I have wasted more time writing about it than the movie deserves.
The End.
Dustin Rowles is the publisher of Pajiba. He lives withi his wife and son in Portland, Maine You can reach him via email, or leave a comment below.
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