THE AISLE SEAT - "MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING"

by Mike McGranaghan

One of the great feelings you get as a moviegoer comes from seeing a big, likable star match up with the right part in the right film after a string of flops. 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). Julia Roberts knows a thing or two about this. She's spent the last several years starring in one dud after another (I Love Trouble, Ready To Wear, and - worst of all - Mary Reilly). Now, in My Best Friend's Wedding, she re-connects with the kind of part that made her a star. I know I will not be the only critic to make this remark, but she does her best work here since Pretty Woman.

Roberts plays Julianne, a restaurant critic who - years earlier - made a pact with her best friend Michael (Dermot Mulroney). They agreed that if they were not married by age 30, they would marry each other. A few weeks before her 30th birthday, Julianne gets an urgent message from Michael on her answering machine. Call me right away, he says, and she figures he is going to follow through with that pact and propose. She tries to find a way to let him down easy, only to discover that his call was for a different reason: he's engaged to someone else.

That someone is Kimmy (Cameron Diaz), a bubbly blonde who seems to be the most relentlessly happy person on the face of the earth. The look on Julianne's face the first time she sees Kimmy is priceless; she despises this woman for being so cute and nice. Faced with the prospect of losing Michael (whom she suddenly realizes she loves), Julianne flies to Chicago to be a bridesmaid, but she has a secret agenda: she wants to break the couple apart. It's not easy to do, as Kimmy is a genuinely sweet person. Julianne desperately wants Michael for herself, but feels bad about having to hurt her friend's fiancee. The guilt doesn't deter her, though, and she forges ahead with her plan.

What ought to be simple is instead unfathomably difficult; the things that should pull Michael and Kimmy apart only push them closer together. Eventually, Julianne calls her editor/friend George (Rupert Everett) to come help. George is gay, but pretends to be Julianne's fiancee so that Michael will become jealous. It's at this point that My Best Friend's Wedding really kicks into high gear. George ingratiates himself with everyone yet still zings them with under-the-radar jokes (including one suggesting that he and Julianne share a Rock Hudson - Doris Day type relationship). He even convinces the entire wedding party to join him in a song as they dine at a seafood restaurant.

One of the things that makes My Best Friend's Wedding such a terrific romantic comedy is that it refuses to play it safe. It would have been so easy to make the character of Kimmy an unlikable shrew so that the audience would easily cheer for Julianne. Instead, the movie deals honestly with the situation - two women both want the same man and only one can have him. I give Julia Roberts credit for playing a character who is not always likable. Through the course of the film, she engages in a few downright dirty schemes. And yet - because of Roberts' natural charm and appeal - we sympathize with her even when we don't approve of what she's doing. The film is smart enough to know that a complicated scenario is far more enjoyable than one in which we can see the outcome a mile away.

There are also a lot of insights into male/female friendships here. Roberts and Mulroney feel like friends in the way they relate, joke around, and speak openly with one another. Men and women will often say things to each other that they would not say to their same-sex friends. The depiction of friendship in the film is right on target (aside from the fact that Roberts wants to do some un-friendly things, of course).

Adding to the pleasure is a first-rate cast, all of whom shine. Most impressive are the two supporting players. Cameron Diaz (so good in everything from The Mask to She's the One) is perky perfection as Kimmy. She emanates such unabashed sweetness that you can easily see why any guy would want to marry her. The way she embraces Julianne is hysterical because she doesn't realize she's befriending someone who wants to betray her. The match between she and Roberts is perfect, one representing total cheeriness, the other representing frustrated desperation. And in a late-film confrontation between the two women, we learn Kimmy is not as naive as she seems.

As George, actor Rupert Everett (Cemetery Man, Dunston Checks In) walks off with the picture. The guy is hilarious, tossing off one-liners left and right, most of which only the audience gets. He relishes the chance to fool everyone in the wedding party with his antics, coming up with more absurd lies every minute. Everett plays the character with such charm and charisma - and such naughtiness - that he literally steals the show. Both he and Diaz are much deserving of Oscar nominations.

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. The film has a lot of big laughs, yet it remains true to the emotional drama of its story - in their quest for the same man, one of these women is going to get hurt. I enjoyed all the performances in the movie, and I laughed myself silly, but it's the bittersweet moments in this wonderful film that stick with me.

( 1/2 out of four)