MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING: 4K UHD Blu-ray (TriStar/Zucker Brothers, 1997) Sony Home Entertainment

Wedding-themed movies are big business. Whatever the year, it seems we are suckers for the proverbial big and boisterous, unabashedly sentimental ‘here comes the bride’ tear-jerker/comedy. And make no mistake, P.J. Hogan’s My Best Friend’s Wedding is just such a ‘feel good’ mega hit that had audiences R.S.V.P-ing around the world in 1997. Understandable, given the movie’s infectious and marginally mechanical plot, everything was salvaged by the casting of then infectiously smart and sexy Julia Roberts to headline.  Herein, Roberts is big-haired food critic, Julianne Potter; a relatively enterprising ‘best friend’, out to ruin her own best friend and sports writer, Michael O’Neal’s (Dermott Mulroney) nuptials to wealthy heiress, Kimberly Wallace (Cameron Diaz). Kimmy is a sugary sweet, too innocent for virginity ingénue/sex bomb – think, Suzie Cream Cheese in a push-up bra – who is as intent on making Julianne her new ‘best friend, and, maid of honor. Unknown to Michael and ‘Kimmy’ – Jules is on the make. In fact, she has all but told her gay friend, George Downes (Rupert Everett) she is determined to split the pair up and win back Michael’s affections. Once upon a time, Michael and Jules were a hot little item. Too hot to last, it seems, and, much too quick to cool before Julianne was ready to let go. Now, Michael’s late night phone call makes it appear as though the years have made him re-think better on their separation. But no – wait for it, Mike’s moved on with Kim and his career, causing Julianne’s little green monster to rear its ugly head.

Such are the moderate complications in Ronald Bass’ pedestrian screenplay. A refreshing departure, particularly given Julia Robert’s million-kilowatt star power at the box office throughout the ‘90’s, Julianne does not get her guy in the end of this heartbreaker, suggesting – at least in hindsight – that perhaps Cameron Diaz was already being groomed as successor to inherit Roberts’ mantle of quality and take over as the casting director’s go-to gal for such syrupy treacle. Alas, this too was not to be, Diaz sinking into the mire of predictable roles shortly thereafter, while Julia Roberts would go on to diversify her acting portfolio with such great movies as her Oscar-winning turn in Erin Brokovich (2002) and Charlie Wilson’s War (2007). My Best Friend’s Wedding comes at the tail end of Roberts swift rise in Hollywood as the amiable girl next door. It’s a predictable comedy – occasionally to a glaring fault. Still, it treads lightly on the formulaic conventions of its cliché-driven, wedding-themed romantic farce. Not every movie has to be a Citizen Kane to entertain us, and My Best Friend’s Wedding, while obvious and marginally cloying, and nowhere near the top of the heap, nevertheless achieves its primary objectives.  It ought to be noted Julia Roberts’ career was made on such fare, starting with great promise in 1988’s Mystic Pizza, but ending with a decided thud in 2001’s Mona Lisa Smile. After a decade’s worth of more commendable work, Roberts tried to come back to this métier in 2010 with the turgidly scripted melodrama, Eat, Pray, Love – unsympathetically tinged with elements of the silly love story. Bad idea. Terrible movie.

My Best Friend’s Wedding is never as disastrous, perhaps because it managed to whet the audience’s unquenchable thirst for wedding pictures, kicked off with gusto in 1991 with the superb remake of Father of the Bride, starring Steve Martin.  Coincidentally, Robert had similarly made her own stunner of a sleeper for Touchstone one year earlier, the modestly budgeted, but big-time performer, Pretty Woman, a memorable tale about a corporate raider’s week-long tryst with a Hollywood Blvd. streetwalker. She gives him sex – but more importantly, sex appeal, and he elevates her innate qualities as the proverbial good girl who just made a wrong turn in her life, herein purified by his wealth. Only a hooker, dressed to look like a supermodel, could arguably be, as Joan Crawford once astutely described her, the perfect woman: a lady in the parlor and a total whore in the bedroom. Mercifully, there was no Cirque du Soliel acrobatics going on in this bedroom comedy. No ‘basic instincts’ either. And thus, what emerged from the film became a regurgitation of the time-honored Cinderella story, only this time with our slut-for-rent in lieu of the virginal princess, and a real heartless bastard in place of the proverbial Prince Charming. Pretty Woman’s syndrome, as well as its dynamic box office success, surprised everyone. Hot stuff, effortlessly plied to sell tickets.

My Best Friend’s Wedding never catches the vapors or impetus of this predecessor. Our Julianne is not a prostitute, although she prostitutes herself in a ridiculous sham to steal back the heart of the man who she willingly chucked into the single’s meat market five years earlier. But Michael is so utterly adolescent in his friendship with Jules he cannot fathom how deep these still waters run. Mike’s rather ridiculous naiveté is eclipsed by our first introduction to Kimberly Wallace, so obviously the froufrou of this frothy confection. Can Kim really be this dumb… prone to fits of whacky laughter as she practically squeezes the air out of Julianne during their first embrace at the airport, and then, dangerously swerving through heavy traffic, cuts across a congested four-lane highway to make her cutoff into the heart of downtown Chicago? This leaves the one intelligent part in the picture to Rupert Everett - a delicious scamp who cuts through all the subterfuge to crystalize the general scheme of things for our Julianne. After Kimberly has caught Michael and Julianne locked in a passionate kiss Julianne instigates in the eleventh hour of her awkwardly planned seduction, George astutely inquires who is chasing who. Kimberly has made a sprint down the front lawn of her family’s palatial estate to drown her pitiful tears. Michael is chasing after her and Julianne is bringing up the rear in hot pursuit of him. “Who’s chasing you?” asks George. The answer, of course, is no one. “Get it?” George cruelly inquires. But, of course, Julianne refuses to acknowledge the obvious. She is not about to give up Michael. Not yet. Or rather, not altogether.

The best bits in Ronald Bass’ screenplay are devoted to Everett’s cynical George who, after being put upon by Julianne to play the part of her very reluctant fiancée (presumably to make Michael jealous even though Michael has already rightly assumed George is gay), wastes no time transforming a simple pre-wedding luncheon at a popular eatery into his own pulpit to humiliate Julianne at her own game of make-believe, concocting a very flamboyant story about how they ‘presumably’ first met and fell in love while visiting friends in prison. George breaks into a verse and chorus of Dion Warwick’s Say A Little Prayer for You. The whole restaurant gets in on the act and Julianne is chagrined – but good. Just not enough to dissuade her from getting Michael back. If this scene seems implausible at a glance, it nevertheless works. But it remains a little tough to swallow Kimmy’s outright forgiveness towards Julianne, made after Julianne confesses her truer intentions and plotting affectingly inside a woman’s public restroom full of opinionated ladies. Eventually, Julianne concedes defeat to Kimberly. But the truth of the matter is Julianne is damaged goods, having pursued Michael on her own terms and then tossed him back to the wolves, making her career top priority at the expense of her personal life. Like Bette Davis’ Margo Channing in All About Eve (1950), this decision comes back to haunt her and Julianne suddenly realizes that without Michael lying next to her in bed she has not felt like a woman in a very long time. Setting aside what feminist scholarship might presume about such desires for any woman in her mid-thirties in the mid-1990’s to be loved just as she is by the guy du jour of her own choosing, My Best Friend’s Wedding narrowly flirts and skirts gender inequality while remaining fairly aggressive in its sexual stereotyping.

Julia Roberts is rounding third base as the backstabbing cougar. Meanwhile, Cameron Diaz is the wide-eyed doe with her eyes caught in the headlamps of this oncoming train wreck, destined to assume the mantle as Michael’s happily-ever-after trophy. Kimmy’s two ‘experienced’ cousins, Samantha (Rachel Griffiths) and Amanda Newhouse (Carrie Preston) are the proverbial tarts - a wickedly playful pair. Will we never tire of the amusement factor American cinema affords promiscuous women? Amanda gets her tongue stuck to the crotch of a male ice sculpture! Susan Sullivan is wasted as the matronly, Isabelle Wallace, refreshingly neither forthcoming with marital platitudes or advice to give her bubble-headed daughter, simply contented to view this debacle from the sidelines. She is her husband, Walter’s (Philp Bosco) trophy wife. When Isabelle and her ladies who lunch quietly observe Kimberly’s frantic dash across the front lawn, immediately followed by Michael, everyone breathes a collective heavy sigh. They must truly be in love. Then, Julianne appears, even more desperately crying out after Michael. “That’s our maid of honor,” Isabelle politely explains to all those eyebrows raised in curiosity, adding “…she’s from New York.” This makes it okay.

My Best Friend’s Wedding opens with an uncharacteristic musical number, having absolutely nothing to do with the plot. A virginal, though inappropriately named ‘Raci’ Alexander and looking very much like a Christina Applegate knock-off, is dressed in hopeful white, lip-syncing to Ani Difranco’s Wishin’ and Hopin’, accompanied by a trio of adoring, pastel-clad bridesmaids (Kelleia Sheeran, Jennifer Garrett, Bree Turner).  It’s an interesting intro, adorable unto itself, but utterly deceiving about where the plot is headed. We segue to a crowded kitchen at a fashionable New York restaurant, all of the backroom pandemonium over the preparation of an entrée destined to make it into Julianne’s latest critical review as ‘inventive’.  The clout Julianne wields over these hapless minions desperate for her approval in print doesn’t impress George. He’s an independently wealthy man of the world and Jules’ best friend. She tells him of a midnight phone message she received from Michael, imploring her to call him back.

It is not wasted on Julianne that once, a long while ago, she and Michael made a pact: if both were unmarried by the time they turned thirty-five they would marry each other, simply to satisfy the biological tick-tick-ticking time bomb. Gee, it must have been love. Now, it’s crunch time. And Julianne has already begun sizing her ring finger and picking out wedding china when Michael telephones to drop the real bomb. He is already engaged, to a sweet thing from Chicago whose father runs a prominent newspaper and is all set to put Michael on the payroll as his new son-in-law. Feigning congratulations, Jules immediately telephones George for some badly needed advice. Then and there, she elects to thwart the marriage by flying to Chicago on the pretext she has come to wish the couple her best. Upon arriving at the airport, however, Julianne immediately realizes this is not going to be so easy. Kimberly Wallace is well-bred, with a sunny disposition and a cheery outlook on life. Moreover, she is in a bind after her cousin has bailed on a promise to be her maid of honor. Owing to Michael’s glowing affection for his best friend, Kimberly has decided to make Julianne her new maid of honor.

Reluctantly, Julianne accepts and is immediately whisked away to a private fitting for the stunning lavender frock she is expected to wear in the bridal party. Julianne attempts to feel out Kimberly’s weaknesses. Alas, she soon discovers this is really a great girl with few transparent cracks in her personality. Michael really has done well for himself. Julianne questions Kimberly about her father’s plans for Michael, to immediately ensconce him in a high-powered position as sports editor for his newspaper.  Michael is fairly reluctant to commit to this post and Julianne seizes upon his apprehensions to question what it will mean for his personal freedom; a very weak argument at best, but one Julianne feebly compounds by exposing Kimberly’s obvious shortcomings as a singer at a karaoke bar. Horribly mangling Burt Bacharach’s classic pop/rock ballad, ‘I Just Don’t Know What To Do With Myself’, Kimberly nevertheless receives an ‘A’ for effort. Whether drunk or just sympathetic, the bar crowd applauds her resolve to stick with it until the last painful note is squeezed out like eggs from a chicken.

That evening, Julianne telephones George for some badly needed advice. She pleads for him to come to Chicago for moral support. However, when George arrives, he quickly discovers he is part of Julianne’s even more insidious plot to pawn him off as her fiancée and make Michael jealous, but moreover, to set Kimberly’s mind at ease while Julianne further skulks to undo their marital knot behind Kim’s back. Pressed by Isabelle to explain how he and Julianne first met, George indulges in a wicked satire, concocting a story about he and Dion Warwick attending a prisoner on visitor’s day and he becoming instantly star-struck by a vision from across the hall, none other than Julianne, come to visit an incarcerated friend. Breaking into Warwick’s ‘Say a Little Prayer’, George manages to stir not only the wedding party, but all of the casual restaurant patrons to follow his lead. Everyone serenades Julianne.

A short while later, George informs Julianne he will not be a party to her scheme. They part as friends, but Julianne is now more determined than ever to wreck the wedding. She sneaks into Michael’s office and attempts, with varying degrees of hilarity, to send an incriminating email from his computer, suggesting he has no intention of accepting Walter’s job offer. It’s all camouflage, further complicated when Michael confides in Julianne, he is having genuine – if momentary – doubts. Pre-wedding jitters and Julianne’s enterprising ways conspire to isolate Michael on a gazebo, where she confesses not only her sins to him but professes an undying love with a passionate kiss. Witnessed at a distance by Kimberly, Michael realizes too late it appears as though he has decided to throw Kimberly over for his old flame. A tear-stained Kimberly flees the house in her car, pursued by Michael in his, and Julianne, carjacking a bakery truck while telephoning George on her cell to get some level-headed advice. “It’s over,” George coolly tells her, and in her own heart Julianne knows this to be true.

Confronting Kimberly, who is hiding in a public bathroom stall, with her genuine affections for Michael, Julianne is surprised when Kimberly emerges not with tears streaming down her cheeks, but a warrior-like stance, prepared to do battle for the man she so obviously loves. The rest of the women attempting to use the facilities are swept up in the drama and side with Kimberly. But when Julianne confesses Michael does not love her after all, she is forgiven her trespasses by Kimberly, who agrees to retain her as the maid of honor. Flash ahead to the blessed day - a sumptuous affair with a now tearful, though confident Julianne looking on as the happy couple is wed. Later, at the tented reception, Julianne declares “things are just as they should be for my best friend”, releasing Michael from any residual guilt by giving the newlyweds ‘Jerome Kern’s immortal, ‘The Way You Look Tonight’ - the song, resurrected as a wedding anthem in Father of the Bride (1991), but herein, that used to mean so much to Julianne when she was with Michael.

Afterward, Kimberly tosses the bouquet and Julianne, who narrowly misses retrieving it, is comforted by a very brief, but heartfelt ‘Goodbye’ from Michael. As the couple’s chauffeur-driven limousine drives off, surrounded by a blistering display of fireworks, Julianne sits alone at her table. Her cell phone rings. It’s George. However, as Julianne continues to listen she becomes acutely aware George is not in New York but actually somewhere in the room.  And although, he quite honestly explains that ‘sex’ will not be part of the equation for this evening, he passionately declares “By God, they’ll be dancing!” before taking an ebullient Julianne in his arms for a spin around the dance floor. The ending to My Best Friend’s Wedding is awkwardly convenient at best, in that it provides no closure for Roberts’ wanting and lonely young miss. She has done her worst, capped off by a good deed and it has been acknowledged as such, but that is all. She has lost the one man that ought to have been hers for the asking. And although she can take some comfort, she has been true to Michael’s best interests, such solace will likely prove a very cold comfort in years to come.

In retrospect, My Best Friend’s Wedding is a more amusingly mature romantic comedy than most, faithful to the imperfectability of life, and certainly, romance itself. We don’t always get who we want. Nor are we generally satisfied by the choices we make in the long run. How will it all play out in long shot once the credits roll? Arguably, not well for all concerned. Once the bloom of honeymoon has worn off, what exactly is there to keep Michael and Kimmy together? What, in fact, was it that drew them so closely together in the first place? As delineated by Cameron Diaz, Kimberly Wallace is a fairly superficial, green girl, wholly dependent on daddy’s money. Michael has no money to speak of, but what he has made with his own two hands. As a sports writer, this won’t be much. Certainly, it in no way rival daddy’s cash flow. Nor is Michael’s nomadic existence, travelling from town to town to cover various sporting events for his magazine, a particularly comforting prospect to Kimberly – a homebody. Michael lives out of his suitcase. Kim would prefer to live fashionably in a penthouse overlooking the river. Fundamentally, Julianne and Michael are two of a kind. One can see this from the outset. They just click in a way that always leaves Kimberly the outsider.

My Best Friend’s Wedding is immeasurably blessed to have László Kovács as its cinematographer. Also, James Newton Howard to compose the orchestral underscore. Kovács’ visuals are brightly lit and sumptuous, always providing interesting compositions, particularly when the plot devolves into banal and featherweight fluff of the most predictable sort. Howard’s score carries a ballast of poignancy and perspective, reflected more astutely in chords than as delivered by any of the actors’ performances. My Best Friend’s Wedding rather neatly plucks at the heartstrings, in part because the audience has a built-in radar and level of blind expectation already anticipated. Curiously, the impact from the proverbial happy ending is marginally blunted by Julianne’s inability to reenter the life she once shared with Michael. He’s moved on. She hasn’t.  And we damn well know she probably won’t be able to for quite some time – if ever.  Nevertheless, using Rupert Everett’s gay sidekick as the soul of brevity and wit proves a rather diverting entrée to this undernourished main course. When the love interest implodes, it is enough to know Julianne will have a warm shoulder to cry on with no strings attached.

Ronald Bass’ screenplay gives ample space for the irresistible hearty laugh and good cry. It never fails. Make a movie about a wedding and you are halfway home at the box office. Shot on location in some of Chicago’s most posh and instantly identifiable settings – including The Drake and Hilton Hotels, Comiskey Park, Union Station, Chicago’s Fourth Presbyterian Church and Cueno Estates and Gardens – My Best Friend’s Wedding is a travelogue as well as a potpourri for the eyes and heart - an unapologetically sentimental bon-bon brimming with laughter and tears. In short, it has something for everyone. Reportedly, executive producer, Jerry Zucker first learned of the property from his wife. Once Julia Roberts committed to the project, she proved immeasurably influential, a helpful asset – reshaping her character and many of the script’s scenarios to her strengths. Interestingly, the scene where George chagrins Julianne with his serenade was shot at Barry and Cudas Crab Shack – a Chicago restaurant already closed before production began. Along the way, the script changed, particularly the ending of the movie. Columbia had imposed a finale on director, P.J. Hogan, whereby Julianne’s scheming results in her being left alone and isolated from the rest of the wedding reception when an unknown handsome guest suddenly appears to offer his hand to her for a dance. At preview, this ending was sneered at by audiences, who found it contrived and predictable. As such, Hogan was allowed to reassemble his cast and crew and re-shoot the ending as it exists today. In the final analysis, My Best Friend’s Wedding proved a colossal success, earning $120 million in its initial release. It remains a perennial favorite and, arguably, one of the best ‘wedding-themed’ comedies of all time.

Sony Home Entertainment debuts My Best Friend’s Wedding on 4K Blu-ray and, running true to form, Grover Crisp and his staff have created a breath-taking UHD transfer that is reference quality. The previously issued Blu-ray was excellent. The 4K bests it in the predictable visual categories - more fully saturated colors and more natural looking flesh tones. Contrast is bang on perfect with gorgeous, velvety blacks. Film grain is also better resolved. Viewed in projection, this one looks very film-like. You are going to love this disc. The 7.1 Dolby Atmos mix is a minor revelation with effects, underscore and dialogue conspiring to provide a truly immersive sonic experience. I cannot believe it has been 25 years since My Best Friend’s Wedding hit theaters. To celebrate, Sony has augmented this disc with 20 minutes of deleted scenes (looking pretty rough) as well as included the original ending. It has also ported over all of the legacy extras that were produced eons ago for the DVD release – a featurette on the ‘making of’, trailer, music video and so on. Bottom line: My Best Friend’s Wedding sparkles in 4K. Given the subject matter, I would have thought Sony to release it during the peak wedding season – May through August. But no. It’s a Christmas release and a good stocking stuffer besides. Bottom line: highly recommended!

FILM RATING (out of 5 - 5 being the best)

3.5

VIDEO/AUDIO

5+

EXTRAS

3.5