My Best Friend's Wedding

Bomb Rating: 

That mouth.

Ladies and Gentleman, come one come all to the greatest show on Earth. Today, under the big top, witness one of the most astounding acts of humankind ever seen by man or beast. Stare in wonder as Miss Julia Roberts, otherwise known as the Mouth of Hollywood, will do the impossible. While costar Dermot Mulroney places his head entirely inside the gaping maw that is Miss Roberts' speaking orifice, Miss Roberts will smoke a cigarette from one side of her mouth while playing The Eagles' "Hotel California" on a harmonica from the other side.

That mouth.

This is not so much an obsession with me as it is a plea for corrective surgery. Once again, Julia's proportions become something of a distraction as she plays Julianne Potter, a food critic who finds out that her best friend, Michael O'Neal (Dermot Mulroney), is getting married. Her plan? Join the wedding party and split up Michael and his bride, Kimmy (Cameron Diaz), so that she can express her love and recapture whatever it was they had so long ago.

Director P.J. ("Muriel's Wedding") Hogan relies on that most annoying of cinematic clichés, a character who thinks that lying to everybody will produce some positive result. Meanwhile, the audience, enduring the kind of pain comparable to swallowing a large walnut whole, begs the character to just tell somebody, anybody, the truth. The catharsis, of course, is the point at which the character spills all the beans and the audience is reassured that Hollywood remains just as stupid and simplistic as ever.

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