Film / My Best Friend's Wedding

A 1997 Romantic Comedy directed by P.J. Hogan (Muriel's Wedding), starring Julia Roberts and Cameron Diaz.

Julianne Potter (Roberts) is a restaurant critic from New York who, turning 28, realizes she's getting dangerously close to being a stale Old Maid. In college she and her best friend, Michael O' Neal (Dermot Mulroney), had made a pact that the two of them would marry each other if neither of them were married by the time they reached 28. He calls close to her birthday... only to tell her that he's found a pretty, wealthy, cheerful young bride in the person of Kimberly Wallace (Diaz), who wants her to be her maid of honor. A Green-Eyed Epiphany follows. She heads to Chicago, to not only be said maid of honor, but also try and sabotage the wedding and get Michael for herself. Hilarity Ensues.

The film opened, embarrassingly, behind Batman & Robin in theaters, but went on to make nearly $300 million at the box office. It also received mostly positive reviews.

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This film provides examples of:

• Almost Kiss: Lampshaded; "sometimes the moment just... passes you by." Interestingly enough, Julianne kisses Michael, but he doesn't kiss back. Even so, Kimberly catches the two of them, causing her to have a Heroic BSoD.
• Anguished Declaration of Love: Julianne delivers one to Michael on his wedding day.
  Julianne: I'll make this quick, or I'm gonna have this massive coronary, then you'll never hear it, and you have to. This is, by far, the dumbest thing I've ever done in my entire life. Uh, so dumb, in fact, that, uh, I can't... Ohh, but I'm gonna.
  Michael: What's wrong?
  Julianne: Michael, I love you. I've loved you for nine years, I've just been too arrogant and scared to realize it. And, well, now I'm just scared. So, I realize this comes at a very inopportune time, but I really have this gigantic favor to ask of you. Choose me, marry me, let me make you happy. Oh, that sounds like three favors, doesn't it? [kisses him]
• Best Woman: According to Michael's father, Julianne was close to becoming one. Can you say "friend-zone?"
• Betty and Veronica: Julianne competes with Kimberly over the groom Michael. You could call Julianne the Betty because they're longtime friends, and Kimberly the Veronica because she's new. Alternatively you can consider Nice Girl Kim the Betty and Villain Protagonist Julianne the Veronica.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Kimberly, once she sees Julianne's sabotage for what it is, is determined to defend her marriage, violently if necessary and just for good measure, she's got a roomful of righteously indignant ladies to back her on it.
• Bittersweet Ending: Julianne gives up on Michael and he goes on to marry Kimberly, making amends to both for her actions. While she's happy for the two, is visibly saddened that she did not get the guy. However George, probably sensing this, quickly books a flight back to Chicago from London and arrives at the reception to come cheer her up.
• Chewing the Scenery: George, while demonstrating a guy he knew who thought "He was Dionne Warwick". It gets contagious.
• Chick Flick: Romance, weddings, karaoke, etc.
• Clingy Jealous Girl: Julianne can't stand the thought of any girl with Michael that is not herself.
• Cool Big Sis: Kim really wants Julianne to become this to her. Little did she know Julianne exploited the position to give her bad advice.
• Crowd Song: "I Say A Little Prayer." It's the gay guy that starts it off to try to make the ruse of being Julianne's boyfriend convincing. The rest just join in and even the restaurant staff help out by providing the music.
• Derailing Love Interests:
  • Invoked, as Julianne plots Relationship Sabotage by derailing Kim.
  • Averted regarding Julianne, who shows clear signs of being a psycho bitch through the film (which are at first concealed by our expectations of the genre), and the script is not shy about how bitchy she is... But that is the point. Julianne gets chewed out for her actions. The Gay Best Friend constantly tells her that her idea is stupid, the Nice Guy is upset when hell breaks loose, and when Julianne has to confront Kim on the shit she did to her, all the women in the scene side with Kim and call Julianne "bitch", "slut" and "couple breaker" in the most hilariously awesome way ever possible.
• Did Not Get The Guy: Julianne, our Villain Protagonist, does not marry her best friend. To soften the blow, there was originally a plan for a Pair the Spares ending where she meets a guy at the reception. They later ended up committing to the Did Not Get The Guy ending more firmly by having Julianne sit with the fact in the final scene, with just the platonic support of her friend George.
• Evil Wears Black: Jules notably shows up in a stunning little black dress to dinner. Having set up an argument with Kim and Michael.
• Fag Hag: Julianne's best friend (apparently her Only Friend aside from Michael) is the homosexual George.
• Fallback Marriage Pact: The setup for the whole plot; Julianne is still single when the pact expires but Michael is not.
• Fiery Redhead: Julianne's temper is shorter than Hair of Gold, Heart of Gold Kimberly and she is more prone to shouting.
• Fourth-Date Marriage: Part of the reason Julianne is so mad that he'd marry Kimberly, since he barely knew her while she and Michael have been friends for years already.
• Genre Deconstruction: A romantic comedy where the protagonist comes to realise that she is the Romantic False Lead. Several Zany Schemes are scuppered when they all failed and/or the couple make up because they're genuinely in love and the lead's attempts to sabotage things are, rather than shown as a sign of caring, treated as the selfish, awful actions they are.
• Green-Eyed Epiphany: While Julianne knew Michael might have feelings for her, she thought of him as her best friend… until she heard he was getting married.
• Heel Realization: At one point, Julianne even says "I'm the bad guy."
• Helium Speech: The boys sing a ballad with helium sucked from the wedding's balloons.
• Heroic BSoD: Happens to Kim, when Julianne kisses Michael. The poor girl runs away in tears and disappears.
• Hidden Depths: Kim's crude and somewhat cruel relations Samantha and Amanda are revealed to have perfect singing voices.
• Hollywood Tone-Deaf: Kimberly is an aversion. Cameron Diaz's karaoke sounds realistically off.
• Ignored Epiphany: There are several moments during the film where Julianne appears to realize how awful the things she is doing are, but they don't really stick until the end.
• Irrevocable Message: Julianne sends an e-mail from Michael's account in an attempt to cause trouble between him and Kim. She realizes how wrong it was once it's too late.
• It's All About Me: Julianne is all about this trope. She wants Michael for herself, and is willing to do anything to get him. Who cares that he's in love with (and about to marry) someone else?
• Ivy League for Everyone: Jules and Michael met at Brown University where they briefly had a fling.
• I Want My Beloved to Be Happy: Inverted through most of the movie. Jules goes to some rather extraordinary lengths to sabotage best friend Michael's wedding so she can marry him herself and put true to a pact they made in college, despite seeing that he is obviously happy and very much in love with Kim. She finally plays it straight after her Heel Realization and seeing that Kim isn't backing down without a fight, however.
• Karaoke Bonding Scene: Variation when Jules tries to sabotage Michael's wedding to Kimmy by forcing Kimmy (who is a bad singer) to do karaoke. However, Kimmy powers through and charms the entire audience. The whole thing only serves to reinforce Michael's love for her, to Jules's disdain.
• Love Triangle: Julianne/Michael/Kimberly.
• Must Make Amends: Julianne forcibly kisses Michael. Kimberly catches them, believes he's cheating on her, and runs away in the middle of an Heroic BSoD. Julianne realizes that Michael really cares for Kim, so she's the one who has to convince Kim to come back for Michael's sake. By the time the two met again, Kim had decided to fight back for Michael. Most of what Julianne did at that point was to assure her that she just kissed Michael suddenly when he wasn't expecting it and that Michael never kissed her back, and to let Kim know that she was giving up.
• Noodle Incident: Kimmy snuck out without anyone noticing because everyone was more focused on a woman who got her tongue stuck to an ice sculpture of Michelangelo's David. Yes, you guessed right exactly where she was trying to kiss it...
• No Sympathy: This is subverted in the karaoke scene. The crowd's initial response to Kimberly's Hollywood Tone-Deaf singing is a humiliating stunned silence, but then they start to cheer and clap and she starts to laugh along with them.
• Old Maid: Julianne didn't care about her age and not being married yet... until Michael told her "I'm getting married to Kim, whooo!"
• Only Sane Man: George knows full well how wrong and destructive Julianne's actions are and tells her so regularly.
• Poor Communication Kills: Subverted. Julianne engineers a huge row between the fiancés, but just as Michael is about to storm off, Kimberly bursts into tears and apologises.
• Precision F-Strike: When Jules is trying to convince Michael and Kimberly that her gay male friend is really her boyfriend. "He's coming over to… um… fuck me." Particularly surprising since PG-13 movies rarely have "fuck" used in an explicit sexual sense.
• Properly Paranoid: In the climax, Julianne accuses Kim of making her the maid of honor in the hopes of keeping an eye on her, and not trusting her from the start. Kim doesn't deny it, but also retorts that Julianne was trying to steal Michael from her, so she wasn't wrong to be suspicious.
• Protagonist Journey to Villain: Jules's schemes get more diabolical and mean-spirited as the film goes on to the point where she's a Villain Protagonist. She gets better by the end.
• Race for Your Love: Julianne attempts to do this for Michael who is racing after Kimberly. She even steals a bread truck to do so. Lampshaded hilariously during a phone conversation Julianne has with her gay best friend.
• "The Reason You Suck" Speech: Julianne gets one delivered to her by Kimmy in the women's restroom after she's caught kissing Michael.
  Kimmy: You kissed him! In my parent's house! ON MY WEDDING DAY!
  Julianne: I...
  Kimmy: Shut up! Now I love this man, and there is no way I'm gonna give him up to some two-faced, big-haired food critic!
• Relationship Sabotage: The whole plot is about Julianne's attempt at breaking up the engaged couple.
• Romantic False Lead: The subversion of this ends up being the crux of the story. One expects the two leads to hook up as Victorious Childhood Friend and the third to be a Disposable Fiancé, but that is not the case here.
• Springtime for Hitler: Julianne arranges for Kimberly to humiliate herself at a karaoke bar, but (what with it being a karaoke bar) everyone cheers and applauds her awful singing and Michael looks impressed that she has guts to go along with it.
• Unrequited Love Switcheroo: Julianne and Michael dated for one month in college, then she dumped him, and they proceeded to be best friends for the next nine years. According to Julianne, he was still in love with her for most of that time — they were Just Friends because she decided so. But once she finds out he's marrying someone else, she has a Green-Eyed Epiphany and suddenly wants him desperately.
• Villain Protagonist: The major gimmick of the film is having the Romantic False Lead as the main character. Julianne wants to break up Michael and Kim so that Michael will marry Julianne instead. The film makes no attempt to hide that Julianne is the villain here; she even says "I'm the bad guy" at one point.
• What the Hell, Hero?:
  • The movie does not try to pass Julianne's actions as acceptable, and that goes double for the characters after she kisses Michael. Which leads to a rather funny scene in a ladies bathroom:
    Kim: You kissed him!
    Spectators: [gasp]
    Kim: In my parent's house!
    Spectators: [gasp!] That's cold.
    Kim: On my WEDDING DAY!
    Spectators: [GASP!!] Bitch… Tramp…
  • George tells Julianne right off the bat he doesn't approve of what she's doing when she ropes him into her scheme. It's implied he deliberately overdoes the acting while posing as her boyfriend in the hopes Julianne will come to her senses. During a final chase scene in which a distressed Kimmy is fleeing the wedding, pursued by Michael, who is in turn being pursued by Julianne, George outright tells her via phone call that she needs to let Michael go.
    George: Michael's chasing Kimmy?
    Julianne: Yes!
    George: You're chasing Michael?
    Julianne: YES!
    George: Who's chasing you... nobody, get it? There's your answer. It's Kimmy.
• Why Can't I Hate You?: Julianne toward Kim. Kim should be Julianne's romantic rival, but Kim is just so unfailingly nice that Julianne can't bring herself to be catty towards her. It makes Julianne's Anguished Declaration of Love all the more anguished.

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