Bride Wars
(Gary Winick):
Kate Hudson, Anne Hathaway, Kristen Johnston, Candice Bergen.
Running time: 90 minutes. (PG)
Many of the golden screwball comedies of the 1930s and ’40s were comedies of remarriage – couple divorce, drive each other nuts, and get married again.
Bride Wars is a twist on the recent trend of comedies of pre-marriage: engaged couples who are engaged break up and then decide to marry. This time, best friends Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) turn into brawling bridezillas when a clerical error sets them up to be married on the same day, in the same hotel, and no one will cancel. Hathaway, with barely enough room on her head for her bulging eyeballs, looks like a Sphynx cat. Hudson purrs and scratches. Saucer of milk for the ladies.
The squealing clichés almost drown out the squealing women. Hathaway looks like she’s biding her time for a good script. She’s sweet and prim, but can’t resist, as usual, getting saucy, which says more about Hathaway than her character Emma.
Unlike the old screwballs, the laughs are tepid and the film is afraid of life. Men are two-dimensional. When Emma fights with her fiancé, you would imagine they had been dating for about four days. Watch Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn scrap it out at the start of Philadelphia Story and you’ll know what I mean.
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