Someday, someone will make a brilliant comedy about the assorted trials and tribulations involved in putting together that perfect wedding.
But it sure isn't Twentieth Century Fox's Bride Wars, a limp comedy that stops at nothing to humiliate everyone associated with it. Playing friends-turned-enemies when their weddings are scheduled on the same day, Anne Hathaway and Kate Hudson waste their considerable talents on a film that can't decide what it wants to be.
What's Bride Wars About?
Mousy teacher Emma (Hathaway) and hard-nosed lawyer Liv (Hudson) are best friends who have but one shared dream: to celebrate a perfect June wedding at The Plaza Hotel in New York, supervised by the doyenne of wedding planners, Marion St. Claire (Candice Bergen).
But when a scheduling error results in their separate ceremonies being booked on the same day, both Emma and Liv realize they have a higher priority than lifelong friendship: the wedding of their dreams.
Caught in an increasing battle of one-upmanship, Emma and Liv become bitter rivals as each tries to sabotage the other's nuptuals.
The rest of the film mixes contrived pratfalls – involving tanning and hair colouring salons, plus a bizarre sequence involving a flamboyant dance teacher – with tepid moralizing about the importance of friendship. You can count the laughs in this film on one hand, while still leaving a finger free to flip off director Gary Winick.
Bride Wars simultaneously tries to mock and celebrate wedding excess when many in this country are losing their jobs and tightening their belts. It revels in the superficial: whether it's a full 5 minute rhapsody about a Vera Wang dress (ka-ching!) or implying that a side character's marriage failed only because she didn't have her marriage at the right venue.
You've come a long way, baby? Not if this film has its say.
Anne Hathaway, Kate Hudson Star in Unfunny Mess
Another problem is the leads aren't that likable. An early scene depicts Hudson virtually browbeating her boyfriend into proposing to her while Hathaway's character ignores her fiancé's concerns about how she's turning into Bridezilla. It's clear these two women are so wrapped up in their own superficial priorities that they're not even thinking about the rest of their lives.
It doesn't help that the men in this film (played by Brian Greenberg, Chris Pratt and Steve Howey) are so interchangeable. A character eventually drops one generic pretty boy for another, believing this will ensure her lifelong happiness. This is supposed to be a big dramatic moment, but all the characters are so underwritten that the sequence falls flat.
No one – with the possible exception of Kristen Johnston as a lazy maid of honour – comes out looking good in Bride Wars, especially the leads.
One can vaguely understand why Kate Hudson (who also produced this mess) has squandered her early promise in a series of vapid-but-profitable comedies: a girl's gotta eat, right? But how anybody could have persuaded Anne Hathaway – currently enjoying some Oscar buzz for her work in Rachel Getting Married – to appear in this trainwreck is beyond comprehension.
The Final Analysis
In 2003, Kate Hudson starred in a romantic comedy called How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days. Girls, if you ever want to lose your boyfriend or husband in less time than that, take him to see Bride Wars. It gets a 2/10.
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