Her wedding is supposed to be the biggest day of a girl's life. She is supposed to feel beautiful, loved and in every way possible she is supposed to feel like the most special person in the world -- because she decided to enter into a social contract with another person. Do people get to make a big hoo-hah with guest lists and cake-tasting sessions and venue decorations and honeymoon plans because they enter into other contracts? Like getting a job; signing a lease for a home; being elected to office?
I'm not going to get into my views on the drama society creates around one day (that is guaranteed to be less than perfect because we put so much pressure on it) when the rest of that marriage is really what the people involved should be focusing on. I'm not going to get into a conspiracy theory rant about how marriages are big business so naturally women are conditioned to treat that one day as the big event they must aspire to, for the duration of their lives before the event, and remember fondly as the height of their personal achievements, forever after that day. Doesn't it all sound a tad ridiculous when I put it like that?
So what is one supposed to expect of a movie called Bride Wars which is about two lifelong friends, Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway), who have dreamt about their perfect wedding being in a specific month at a specific venue?
Really? That is how one decides what a perfect wedding will be? What about the groom? The presence of family and loved ones? The promise of a partnership that will see both people through the thick and thin that life hurls at them?
No? Okay, then allow me to paint any woman that thinks like the two 'smart, successful women' who are the centrepiece of this blight on celluloid, as vapid and inessential.
It goes without saying that the friendship is torn apart when their weddings are double-booked, thereby making it impossible for them to be each other's Maid of Honour, and pitching them against each other in a battle for the better wedding.
Husbands-to-be, friends, waistlines and their own reputations become the casualties as they countdown to the day they will walk down the aisle. So it should come as no surprise to anyone at all, that neither of them walks away smelling like roses when the main event is behind them.
Sitting through this slight film (barely touches the hour-and-a-half mark and still manages to feel too long) one is forced to wonder what prompted the lead actresses to sign on for this project. Boredom? A fat pay cheque? An empty box on their career checklist? Coercion? A contract that needed to be honoured?
It definitely couldn't have been because the screenplay sparkled with wit and humour because if it did they left all that good stuff on the editing room floor. It also couldn't have been the prospect of working with the director of such 'classics' as 13 Going On 30, Tadpole and episodes of Ugly Betty and Lipstick Jungle.
The rest of the cast has precious little to do so the appeal (or lack thereof) of this movie rest solely on the shoulders of its leading ladies. Ms Hathaway has exhibited a certain gift for comic timing and has held her own in movies like The Devil Wears Prada, The Princess Diaries and hell she was even nominated for an Oscar for her work in Rachel Getting Married -- all off which does precious little to explain her participation in this project. Ms Hudson's facial muscles really don't move much and in the recent past she has helped sell more tabloids than movie tickets so maybe she needed this film.
As redeeming qualities go, this movie has none. It sounds like a decent idea and perhaps there is a good movie somewhere in the ether with this exact same premise. Bride Wars is not that film.
Rediff Rating: 
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