My Best Friend's Wedding (1997)
Directed by P.J. Hogan
When she receives word that her longtime platonic pal Michael O'Neal is getting married to debutante Kimberly Wallace, food critic Julianne Potter realizes her true feelings for Michael -- and sets out to sabotage the wedding.
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9 films that influenced My Best Friend's Wedding
What critics say influenced My Best Friend's Wedding
But the movie itself is a disappointment, as director P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding") and screenwriter Ronald Bass ("Rain Man," "Waiting to Exhale") attempt a screwball domestic comedy in the vein of "Holiday" or "The Philadelphia Story."
In screwball comedy, of course, there's a great tradition of devilish chicanery (think of the way Katharine Hepburn's dizzying deceptions made Cary Grant's head spin in Bringing Up Baby).
In Muriel's Wedding, director Hogan orchestrated sympathy for a perennial underdog obsessed with marriage; here, we're meant to empathise with a Machiavellian anti-hero - as Julianne humiliates her rival at a karaoke club, re-routes the honeymoon, and generally comes on like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
Dermot Mulroney started his career in "Young Guns" with Kiefer Sutherland.
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In Muriel's Wedding, director Hogan orchestrated sympathy for a perennial underdog obsessed with marriage; here, we're meant to empathise with a Machiavellian anti-hero - as Julianne humiliates her rival at a karaoke club, re-routes the honeymoon, and generally comes on like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
Since Hogan's first film was "Muriel's Wedding", I suppose he was a natural choice to direct another wedding picture.
My Best Friend's Wedding was written by Ronald Bass (Rain Man, Dangerous Minds, Waiting to Exhale) and directed by P.J. Hogan, who knows how to make a wedding comedy, having helmed the Australian import Muriel's Wedding.
Aussie director P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding") helms and Ronald Bass writes a romantic comedy that is both mawkish and subversive, where the comedy is grating at times but the story does get away from the usual feel-good sitcom reality by bringing out the morally worst potentials in all of us.
Directed by P.J. Hogan (Muriel's Wedding) and written by Ronald Bass.
Director P.J. Hogan, in familiar territory having directed "Muriel's Wedding" in 1994, resorts occasionally to cheap metaphors, but he makes up for it by taking the film in some unexpected directions with terrific casting.
My Best Friend's Wedding was written by Ronald Bass (Rain Man, Dangerous Minds, Waiting to Exhale) and directed by P.J. Hogan, who knows how to make a wedding comedy, having helmed the Australian import Muriel's Wedding.
Bass, who wrote this as an original, has credits including some of the best recent women's roles: "Sleeping With the Enemy," " The Joy Luck Club ," "When a Man Loves a Woman," " Dangerous Minds ," "Waiting to Exhale."
But the movie itself is a disappointment, as director P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding") and screenwriter Ronald Bass ("Rain Man," "Waiting to Exhale") attempt a screwball domestic comedy in the vein of "Holiday" or "The Philadelphia Story."
My Best Friend's Wedding was written by Ronald Bass (Rain Man, Dangerous Minds, Waiting to Exhale) and directed by P.J. Hogan, who knows how to make a wedding comedy, having helmed the Australian import Muriel's Wedding.
But the movie itself is a disappointment, as director P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding") and screenwriter Ronald Bass ("Rain Man," "Waiting to Exhale") attempt a screwball domestic comedy in the vein of "Holiday" or "The Philadelphia Story."
When a performer finally synergizes with a role, it can be real movie magic (think John Travolta in Pulp Fiction or Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor).
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When a performer finally synergizes with a role, it can be real movie magic (think John Travolta in Pulp Fiction or Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor).