My Best Friends Wedding

Plot

Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts), a 27-year-old New York City restaurant critic, receives a call from her lifelong friend Michael O'Neal (Dermot Mulroney). In college, the two made an agreement that if neither of them were married by the time they turned 28, they would marry each other. Three weeks before her 28th birthday, Michael tells her that in four days, he will marry Kimmy Wallace (Cameron Diaz), a 20-year-old University of Chicago student from a wealthy family.

Julianne is disappointed that Michael will marry someone so wrong for him, and someone he has known for such a short time. She realizes that she is in love with Michael, and heads to Chicago, intent on sabotaging his wedding. Soon after arriving she meets Kimmy, who asks her to be the maid of honor. This sets off a subplot in which Julianne must pretend to be the dutiful maid of honor while secretly scheming ways to prevent the wedding from happening. She engages in petty sabotage—for example, taking Kimmy and Michael to a karaoke bar after discovering that Kimmy is a terrible singer—and later asks her gay friend and editor George Downes (Rupert Everett) to pretend they are engaged, hoping to make Michael jealous.

When these tactics fail, George persuades Julianne to do the obvious: tell Michael she is in love with him. One morning, Michael gets Julianne alone and tells her that it'll be the last time they ever get to be alone. He expresses some skepticism in marrying Kimmy, explaining that he and Kimmy don't share a special song like he and Julianne do. Michael discreetly gives Julianne the invitation to tell him she's in love with him, but she lets the opportunity pass. Michael starts singing their song as he grabs Julianne and holds her while they dance one last time. Julianne's unauthorized use of Kimmy's father's computer to forge an email message to Michael's employer causes further problems for Michael and Kimmy, to the point where they are on the verge of calling off the wedding.

The next morning, the day of the wedding, Julianne tries to sabotage the situation further; as Michael and Kimmy are not speaking to each other, they communicate through Julianne, not realizing she is trying to manipulate them into breaking up for good. In spite of this, Michael and Kimmy decide they do love each other and want to get married after all. Julianne and Michael then take a walk, with Julianne finally confessing her love to Michael. She asks him to marry her instead, and passionately kisses him. Kimmy witnesses this, and runs off, but Michael chases her.

Julianne pursues Michael, but finally realizes he loves Kimmy. Julianne finds Michael at Chicago Union Station, where he is looking for Kimmy, and confesses all to him. Despite his anger at her deception, Michael forgives Julianne, and they split up to look for Kimmy. Julianne then tracks down Kimmy in the bathroom of Comiskey Park (Kimmy's family has a private viewing box at the stadium). Kimmy, rightly furious with Julianne, confronts her, while the other women watch, immediately siding with Kimmy and are disgusted with Julianne's dirty tactics. Julianne, however, apologizes and explains to Kimmy that she kissed Michael unexpectedly, but he didn't kiss her back because he was in love with Kimmy. Julianne declares that Kimmy has won, and that she accepts Michael's decision. Kimmy and Julianne reconcile with each other while the witnesses applaud.

After the wedding, at the reception, Julianne tells Michael that he and Kimmy can use their special song until they find one of their own, essentially acting like a true best friend. Julianne wishes them well, and she and Michael share their goodbyes, both of them finally moving on with their lives. Later, Julianne is surprised by George showing up at the wedding reception. The movie ends with the two of them happily sharing a dance together.

Cast

Box office

The film opened at No. 2 at the North American box office, making $21,678,377 USD in its opening weekend, behind Batman & Robin. It stayed in the top 10 weekly U.S. box-office for six consecutive weeks, and eventually earned $127,120,029. The worldwide gross total stands at $299,288,605 (listed as one of the 10 biggest films of 1997 both domestically and worldwide).

Critical reception

The film received generally positive reviews from critics. As of June 2012, it holds a 71% approval rating on review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes.

Total Film praised the film, giving it four stars out of five and stating "Here she banishes all memories of Mary Reilly and I Love Trouble with a lively, nay sparkling, performance. Smiling that killer smile, shedding those winning tears, delivering great lines with effortless charm, Roberts is back where she rightly belongs - not in grey period costume, but as the sexy queen of laughs". The Review also said that "My Best Friend's Wedding is a perfect date movie", and a film that "proves Roberts isn't as crap as we all thought she was".

Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it "the summer-date-film supreme for pretty women and the gay men they love", despite criticisms of the script. He praises Roberts as "riper, more dexterous with a comic line, slyer with modulation", concluding that "Roberts puts her heart into this one".

Joanna Berry of Radio Times gave it four stars out of five, observing that this "sparkling comedy" proved to be a career-resurrecting movie for Julia Roberts.

CNN movie reviewer Carol Buckland said Roberts "lights up the screen", calling the film "fluffy fun".

Roger Ebert of Chicago Sun-Times said, "One of the pleasures of Ronald Bass' screenplay is the way it subverts the usual comic formulas that would fuel a plot like this."

Andrew Johnston (critic), writing in Time Out New York, observed, "The best scene occurs when Julianne's gay editor and confidant George (Everett) turns up in Chicago and poses as her fiancé, seizing control of the film for five delicious minutes. His devilish impersonation of a straight guy is priceless, and things only get better when he leads a sing-along at the rehearsal dinner. At times like this, when the film spins into pop culture overdrive that it stops being a star vehicle and flirts with genuine comic brilliance."

Awards and recognition

American Film Institute recognition:

Soundtrack

The soundtrack was released on June 17, 1997 with Stage and Screen genre. The soundtrack relied on covers of familiar songs. The soundtrack was praised by AllMusic to work "better than it should, since most of the vocalists... concentrate on the songs..."

1. "I Say a Little Prayer (For You)" – Diana King
2. "Wishin' and Hopin' " – Ani DiFranco
3. "You Don't Know Me" – Jann Arden
4. "Tell Him" – The Exciters
5. "I Just Don't Know What to Do with Myself" – Nicky Holland
6. "I'll Be Okay" – Amanda Marshall
7. "The Way You Look Tonight" – Tony Bennett
8. "What the World Needs Now Is Love" – Jackie Deshannon
9. "I'll Never Fall In Love Again" – Mary Chapin Carpenter
10. "Always You" – Sophie Zelmani
11. "If You Wanna Be Happy" – Jimmy Soul
12. "I Say a Little Prayer (For You)" – The Cast of My Best Friend's Wedding
13. "Suite From My Best Friend's Wedding" – James Newton Howard

Remake

A Chinese remake directed by Alexi Tan, and with Shu Qi, Feng Shaofeng, Victoria Song and Ye Qing in the main roles, is scheduled to start filming in July 2015 and to be released in China in 2016 on Valentine's Day.