Line #5 Film/MyBestFriendsWedding


1	[[quoteright:300:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/0119738hq5_3687.jpg]]
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3	A 1997 RomanticComedy directed by P.J. Hogan (''Film/MurielsWedding''), starring Creator/JuliaRoberts and Creator/CameronDiaz.
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5	Julianne Potter (Roberts) is a restaurant critic from New York who, turning 28, realizes she's getting dangerously close to being a stale OldMaid. In college she and her best friend, Michael O' Neal (Creator/DermotMulroney), had made a pact that the two of them [[FallbackMarriagePact 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 GreenEyedEpiphany follows. She heads to Chicago, to not only be said maid of honor, but also try and [[RelationshipSabotage sabotage the wedding]] and get Michael for herself. HilarityEnsues.
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7	The film opened, embarrassingly, behind ''Film/BatmanAndRobin'' in theaters, but went on to make nearly $300 million at the box office. It also received mostly positive reviews.
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10	!!This film provides examples of:
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12	* AlmostKiss: 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 HeroicBSOD.
13	* AnguishedDeclarationOfLove: Julianne delivers one to Michael on his wedding day.
14	-->'''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.\
15	'''Michael:''' What's wrong?\
16	'''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]''
17	* BestWoman: According to Michael's father, Julianne was close to becoming one. Can you say "friend-zone?"
18	* BettyAndVeronica: 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 NiceGirl Kim the Betty and VillainProtagonist Julianne the Veronica.
19	* BewareTheNiceOnes: [[NiceGirl Kimberly]], once she sees Julianne's [[RelationshipSabotage 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.
20	* BittersweetEnding: 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 [[DidNotGetTheGirl 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.
21	* ChewingTheScenery: George, while demonstrating a guy he knew who thought "He was Music/DionneWarwick". [[CrowdSong It gets contagious.]]
22	* ChickFlick: Romance, weddings, karaoke, etc.
23	* ClingyJealousGirl: Julianne can't stand the thought of any girl with Michael that is not herself.
24	* CoolBigSis: Kim really wants Julianne to become this to her. Little did she know Julianne exploited the position to give her bad advice.
25	* CrowdSong: "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.
26	* DerailingLoveInterests:
27	** Invoked, as Julianne plots RelationshipSabotage by derailing Kim.
28	** 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... [[Administrivia/TropesAreTools But that]] [[JustifiedTrope is the point.]] Julianne [[WhatTheHellHero gets chewed out for her actions]]. The GayBestFriend constantly tells her that her idea is stupid, the NiceGuy 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.
29	* DidNotGetTheGuy: Julianne, our VillainProtagonist, does not marry her best friend. To soften the blow, there was originally a plan for a PairTheSpares ending where she meets a guy at the reception. They later ended up committing to the DidNotGetTheGuy ending more firmly by having Julianne sit with the fact in the final scene, with just the platonic support of her friend George.
30	* EvilWearsBlack: Jules notably shows up in a stunning little black dress to dinner. Having set up an argument with Kim and Michael.
31	* FagHag: Julianne's best friend (apparently her OnlyFriend aside from Michael) is the homosexual George.
32	* FallbackMarriagePact: The setup for the whole plot; Julianne is still single when the pact expires but Michael is not.
33	* FieryRedhead: Julianne's temper is shorter than HairOfGoldHeartOfGold Kimberly and she is more prone to shouting.
34	* FourthDateMarriage: 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.
35	* GenreDeconstruction: A romantic comedy where the protagonist comes to realise that ''she'' is the RomanticFalseLead. Several {{Zany Scheme}}s 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.
36	* GreenEyedEpiphany: While Julianne knew ''Michael'' might have feelings for ''her'', ''she'' thought of ''him'' as her best friend… until she heard he was getting married.
37	* HeelRealization: At one point, Julianne even ''says'' "I'm the bad guy."
38	* HeliumSpeech: The boys sing a ballad with helium sucked from the wedding's balloons.
39	* HeroicBSOD: [[spoiler: Happens to Kim, when Julianne kisses Michael. The poor girl runs away in tears and disappears.]]
40	* HiddenDepths: Kim's crude and somewhat cruel relations Samantha and Amanda are revealed to have perfect singing voices.
41	* HollywoodToneDeaf: Kimberly is an aversion. Cameron Diaz's karaoke sounds realistically off.
42	* IgnoredEpiphany: 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.
43	* IrrevocableMessage: 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.
44	* ItsAllAboutMe: 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?
45	* IvyLeagueForEveryone: Jules and Michael met at Brown University where they briefly had a fling.
46	* IWantMyBelovedToBeHappy: 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 HeelRealization and seeing that Kim isn't backing down [[ViolentlyProtectiveGirlfriend without a fight]], however.
47	* KaraokeBondingScene: 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.
48	* LoveTriangle: Julianne/Michael/Kimberly.
49	* MustMakeAmends: [[spoiler: Julianne [[ForcefulKiss forcibly kisses]] Michael. Kimberly catches them, [[MistakenForCheating believes he's cheating on her]], and runs away in the middle of an HeroicBSOD. 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.]]
50	* NoodleIncident: 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...
51	* NoSympathy: This is subverted in the karaoke scene. The crowd's initial response to Kimberly's HollywoodToneDeaf singing is a humiliating stunned silence, but then they start to cheer and clap and she starts to laugh along with them.
52	* OldMaid: Julianne didn't care about her age and not being married yet... until Michael told her "I'm getting married to Kim, whooo!"
53	* OnlySaneMan: George knows full well how wrong and destructive Julianne's actions are and tells her so regularly.
54	* PoorCommunicationKills: Subverted. Julianne engineers a huge row between the fiancés, but just as Michael is about to storm off, Kimberly bursts into tears and apologises.
55	* PrecisionFStrike: 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.
56	* ProperlyParanoid: 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.
57	* ProtagonistJourneyToVillain: Jules's schemes get more diabolical and mean-spirited as the film goes on to the point where she's a VillainProtagonist. [[spoiler:She gets better by the end.]]
58	* RaceForYourLove: 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.
59	* TheReasonYouSuckSpeech: Julianne gets one delivered to her by Kimmy in the women's restroom after she's caught kissing Michael.
60	-->'''Kimmy:''' You kissed him! In my parent's house! ON MY WEDDING DAY!\
61	'''Julianne:''' I...\
62	'''Kimmy:''' [[BigShutUp 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!
63	* RelationshipSabotage: The whole plot is about Julianne's attempt at breaking up the engaged couple.
64	* RomanticFalseLead: The subversion of this ends up being the crux of the story. One expects the two leads to hook up as VictoriousChildhoodFriend and the third to be a DisposableFiance, but that is not the case here.
65	* SpringtimeForHitler: 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.
66	* UnrequitedLoveSwitcheroo: 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 JustFriends because ''she'' decided so. But once she finds out he's marrying someone else, she has a GreenEyedEpiphany and suddenly wants him desperately.
67	* VillainProtagonist: The major gimmick of the film is having the RomanticFalseLead 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.
68	* WhatTheHellHero:
69	** 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:
70	--->'''Kim:''' You kissed him!\
71	'''Spectators:''' ''[gasp]''\
72	'''Kim:''' In my parent's house!\
73	'''Spectators:''' ''[gasp!]'' That's cold.\
74	'''Kim:''' On my WEDDING DAY!\
75	'''Spectators:''' ''[GASP!!]'' Bitch… Tramp…
76	** 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.
77	--->'''George:''' Michael's chasing Kimmy?\
78	'''Julianne:''' Yes!\
79	'''George:''' You're chasing Michael?\
80	'''Julianne:''' YES!\
81	'''George:''' Who's chasing you... nobody, get it? There's your answer. It's Kimmy.
82	* WhyCantIHateYou: 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 AnguishedDeclarationOfLove all the more anguished.

Context Film / MyBestFriendsWedding