Bride Wars

Bride Wars

Dir: Gary Winick

Starring: Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway

Runtime: 1 hr 30 mins

Bride Wars is a romantic comedy about a classic American rite of passage: the battle between two best friends who, through circumstances far beyond their control, can only get married on the same day for some reason.

Let me just say that I have been excited to see this movie since before it was even announced. On opening night, I arrived at the theatre promptly at midnight in my bride costume. Sadly, I must report that I was among the few that actually took the extra step to dress up. Apparently, wearing costumes to opening night is a dying tradition in American culture, because if you're not getting in costume for Bride Wars, what are you holding out for? Your own wedding? Please. Nobody is going to see that.

As much as I wanted this film to be the next Dark Knight, there was an obvious plot hole that was impossible to overlook. Frankly, it ruins the entire movie. I was actually embarrassed to be wearing the bridal gown when the movie was over.

The dramatic conflict is created by the two best friends who want to get married on the same day. The question burning in the audience's collective mind is: why doesn’t one bride simply kill the other?

If Hollywood and MTV have taught us anything (and they have taught us everything), it is that weddings are the single most important thing to any woman, ever. Weddings trump money, love, new shoes, children, and most of all, friendship. Weddings are the only thing that gives a woman meaning in her shallow, shoe-centric life.

In fact, I only know of one girl who would not murder her best friend if her friend was preventing her from having her wedding on a specific day (and that's only because she has no friends). Back me up on this, ladies.

I know what you're going to say: “ Tom, I agree with everything you just said, but if one of the brides killed the other one, the movie would have been too short.” Maybe you are right, Faceless-Reader-of-this-Blog. But at least it would have been real.

It would have been so easy for them to do it, too. A mail bomb, poison, hire a hitman, poison-by-mail, or scissors to the back of the head while they were clipping wedding coupons.

Another solution would be for one of the brides to kill the other's groom (no groom = no marriage). The consequences of this would have created a deliciously dramatic situation, as it would leave a vengeful, fiance-less woman, who would crash the other girl’s wedding drunk, and right before the vows, she'd start clapping real slow, and then when everyone is looking at her she'd say something like, “Everyone clap for the murder-bride!” and no one would know what she was talking about except for the bride, who would be thinking “Oh shit!”

Or she might pay a homeless man $20 to marry her, and continue with the wedding as planned, just out of spite.

You see, faithless readers, there is plenty of drama in reality. Hollywood has no need to insult us with such contrived endings, such as the two girls resolving their differences and becoming friends again in the end. No more, Hollywood! We want real! We demand the promised bloodshed that you have promised us!

1 out of 5 stars.