My Best Friend's Wedding

On this episode, best friends Caitlin and Jamie attend each other's weddings where they discuss My Best Friend's Wedding!

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:01):
On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.

Speaker 2 (00:16):
Hello Caitlin, Hello Jamie.

Speaker 3 (00:19):
So, in spite of being my best friend, you haven't
talked to me in a month. Do you ever think
about that?

Speaker 2 (00:25):
I think that is normal. I think it's also normal
that I didn't know about your wedding until just now,
even though it's four days from now.

Speaker 1 (00:36):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (00:36):
But we're best friends, and we know that we're best
friends because we are always saying it, and that's really
the only But we're best friends. Do we have chemistry? No?

Speaker 2 (00:47):
No, I would say not no.

Speaker 3 (00:49):
Do we know what's going on in each other's lives?

Speaker 2 (00:53):
No, not even a little bit.

Speaker 3 (00:55):
And I would bet Caitlin that you're probably sitting across
from your actual best friend right now. But the movie
we're in, we'll never acknowledge it, right, it's so wild.
George is her best friend, Like yeah, what?

Speaker 2 (01:10):
And she does admit that at some point she's like, well,
my best friend these days and it's like yeah, and.

Speaker 3 (01:16):
You're like, sorry, it's he's just your best friend. Like
you and Michael don't know each other. You guys are
horny chaos machines, and I wish you the worst. Welcome
to the Backdeor Cast. This is my best friend's podcast.

Speaker 2 (01:33):
Oh wow.

Speaker 3 (01:34):
Yeah, and my name's Jamie Loftus.

Speaker 2 (01:36):
Well, what if someone comes in here and tries to
break up this podcast because they're in love with us?

Speaker 3 (01:43):
They want to make a podcast with us more? Oh wow?

Speaker 2 (01:49):
Anyway, I'm Caitlin Dante.

Speaker 3 (01:51):
And this is our podcast where we talk about your
favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens. And we really
have been dragging our heels on this one, but it
is a movie that simply begs to be discussed on
this podcast.

Speaker 2 (02:08):
It sure does.

Speaker 3 (02:09):
Okay, here's something that doesn't pass the Bechtel test before
we tell you what it is. As I was watching
this movie, I was thinking Shrek would be having none
of this. You know what I mean? What do you
mean killing Cameron Diaz is being mistreated the whole movie.
Shrek would be having none of this. Well, caught that

(02:31):
joke there.

Speaker 2 (02:34):
Well, there's another Shrek connection too, because a construction a construction.

Speaker 3 (02:40):
Wow, that's every dessert we ever have a delicious construction.

Speaker 2 (02:46):
Rupert Everett voices Prince Charming.

Speaker 3 (02:48):
Oh, Rupert Everett is a delight in this movie. I
think he's one of the movie's few high points. Now,
on the other hand, Dermott mulroney, I can't with.

Speaker 2 (03:01):
This guy, This motherfucker.

Speaker 3 (03:04):
He is a fucking dud. He is a dud. It
is He's just too much. He's not too much. I
wish he were more. I wish he were more. Yeah,
Dermott mulroney. I feel like this is not our first
encounter with Dermott mulroney, and it's just never been pleasant
for me encountering Dermott mulroney.

Speaker 2 (03:27):
Who I'm gonna probably accidentally call Dylan McDermott because I
don't know the difference between those two people.

Speaker 3 (03:33):
Dylan mulrony, I mean, and the names certainly don't help, right,
I mean, it is interesting whenever you watch rom coms
or movies you know, generally directed at or marketed towards
women and fems from any era. You have movie stars
who have endured, and then you have sort of like
the white guy flavor of the months who thirty years

(03:54):
from now, your daughter is like, who the fuck is
Dermott mulroney. Yeah, you know, like every generation has their
Dermott Mulroney's. What if he was a listener? Oh my god,
what if he was crying?

Speaker 2 (04:05):
Well, I'm sure he's fine as an actor or whatever.
It's his character, that's.

Speaker 3 (04:13):
I'm sure he's fine. I would issue a notes ap
apology if if I knew that this slander got to
Dermott mulroney. Yeah, I'd be like, I am so sorry, Dermott.
I didn't realize the power of my platform.

Speaker 2 (04:27):
I mean, he's our biggest fan.

Speaker 3 (04:29):
For all we know, we're in the top one hundred
movie podcasts, so and I'm assuming Dermot mulroney is listening
to all the hundred of them, so, you know, whenever
he gets around to this, my apology start. But boy,
what a flop character. I mean, although it did make
me laugh a lot because well no, wait, okay, what

(04:52):
is the Bechdel Test?

Speaker 2 (04:54):
Gitlin? Oh right right. It's a media metric created by
queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test.
It was coined as a goof first appearing in Alison
Bechdel's Dikes to Watch Out For in nineteen eighty five.
It has many versions. The version we use is do

(05:15):
two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they
speak to each other? And is the conversation about something
other than a man? And we especially like it when
it's a narratively meaningful conversation. Right, So we'll talk about
that later, but in the meantime, I.

Speaker 3 (05:36):
Have to say one more thing about Dermott mulroney.

Speaker 2 (05:38):
Yeah. Please, Well, so this won't pass the Bechdel test.

Speaker 3 (05:42):
No, it won't, it won't. No, I was just thinking
about it was making me laugh. The surface level similarities
that the Dermott mulroney character has to my own dad
in that he is a sports writer named Mike Yes
who sometimes struggles to emotionally connect. And I was like wow.

(06:02):
But also I was like, was my dad like a supervillain?
Was he a dormt mulroney type. No? I did love.
I loved the detail that he worked at Sport magazine.

Speaker 2 (06:13):
It was cracky. I didn't even notice.

Speaker 3 (06:16):
I couldn't stop noticing it. I mean, it didn't come
up with that many times, but the first time I
was like Dormitt mulroney, you clown, you said sports wrong.
But no he worked at sport magazine. Because later, when
Julia Roberts is sending her evil email, ugh, she sends
it to like editor in chief at sportmagazine dot com,

(06:37):
Like you're just like not sport magazine. Give me a
fucking right. I love fake movie companies. They're the best.

Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yeah, today we're.

Speaker 3 (06:45):
Talking about my best friend's wedding, a nineteen ninety seven
movie about two people who like should really just like
they deserve each other. They deserve each other, get out
of here, you know, and let's let Cameron Diaz finish
college for crying out.

Speaker 2 (06:59):
Wow seriously, Oh gosh.

Speaker 3 (07:02):
They had me rooting for a billionaire's daughter. This movie
had me in the trenches.

Speaker 2 (07:08):
What's your history with the movie, Jamie?

Speaker 3 (07:11):
So this is not a movie that I grew up with,
which is weird. I feel like I'm very hit and
miss with irrational attachments to nineties and two thousands rom coms.
Some I ride for. This is just not when I
ever watched growing up. So I didn't see it until
a couple of years ago, and I really did not

(07:32):
care for it. And I still I'm sorry for fans
of this movie. I understand objectively that this movie and
then reading a little bit more about the production history
of this movie made me at least appreciate what they
were going for a little more. But like, I don't
like it. I do think it is a like, on

(07:54):
its face, a subversive and fun idea for the movie
star of the movie to be playing the villain of
the movie in a rom com. That's a fun idea.
I'm on board for that. And it almost feels like
Julia Roberts like Olympics, to like play someone so deeply
hateable and still be so likable because due to being

(08:16):
Julia Roberts like interesting conceptually, but I just like it
just totally flopped so many things and even in a
lot of the contemporary criticism or you know, this movie
turned twenty five in twenty twenty two, so there were
some reflective essays on it, but I still don't see
people calling out Dermot mulroney's fucking character for being so like.

(08:41):
So I think that this movie was, you know, it
written by a very like probably one of the most
successful screenwriters of the twentieth century. Weirdly, but like, it
just doesn't come together. It just doesn't, and it doesn't
come together in a way that I found like pretty
confusing and aggravating and gross because for all of the

(09:02):
discourse that has apparently been going on around Julia Roberts
and Cameron Diaz's character for twenty five years, which is interesting.
I also like that Cameron Diaz is presented as if
she's going to be the villain and then she's not
fun subversion, But it's the Michael character where he is
I think Barnunn the most evil character in the movie,

(09:23):
and there's like, you know, I've seen criticism of it,
but not the degree I was expecting to. Over twenty
five years later, it still seems to be like Julia
Roberts is evil and it's interesting because of the ending.
It is interesting because of the ending, but I still
feel like at the end of the movie, Michael and
Kimmy getting married is a terrible ending for especially Kimmy.

(09:48):
Like I found it so aggravating, aggravating because there were
moments where you're like, oh, maybe it's about to but
then it never does and it has no interest in
being critical of Michael.

Speaker 2 (10:00):
Mm hmm.

Speaker 3 (10:01):
I don't like it. I found it very frustrating because
there's elements of it that I thought should have been interesting,
and maybe under a more confident writing team, could have
been interesting. But yeah, I think ultimately a waste of
Julia Roberts's time in my opinion. Sure, what's your history
with this movie?

Speaker 2 (10:21):
I similarly did not grow up with it. This movie
came out in ninety seven, and that was famously the
year Titanic came out, and so I didn't really have
time for anything else besides Titanic.

Speaker 3 (10:34):
Oh yeah, yeah, what else would you have been doing?

Speaker 2 (10:36):
Even though Titanic came out at the very end of
nineteen ninety seven, I cleared my whole year in anticipation.

Speaker 3 (10:44):
You were getting so high. What else came out in
nineteen ninety seven? I think it was like a kind
of fun movie year. Oh you know what, I take
it back. You know, you could have been seeing a Hercules,
you could have been seeing Disney's Hercules. You could have
been seeing Goodwill Hunt or something.

Speaker 2 (11:01):
Sure, one of my favorite movies also came out in
ninety seven, which is the Full Monty.

Speaker 3 (11:05):
Oh yeah.

Speaker 2 (11:06):
But other than that, it's kind of a floppy ar
for movies.

Speaker 3 (11:10):
I think my favorite Brother came out in nineteen ninety seven,
and so that's important. Okay, I just looked up nineteen
ninety seven movies and do you I don't know anything
about the movie. As good as it gets.

Speaker 2 (11:22):
I've seen it several times. I'll answer you all your questions.

Speaker 3 (11:25):
Do you like it?

Speaker 2 (11:26):
It is not my kind of movie at all.

Speaker 3 (11:28):
Okay.

Speaker 2 (11:29):
So it's more that, like I acknowledge that it's probably
a good movie, or I know what's a movie people like.
But I am not a fan.

Speaker 3 (11:40):
Personally, so I've never seen it. But I for some
reason had like the DVD cover is emblazoned in my mind,
maybe because it was just like on sale a lot,
and I was like, oh, yeah, that movie about Jack
Nickolson falling in love with a little dog. Because that's
the cover. I was like, what could that movie be about.
It's just Jack Nicholson looking absolutely in love with this

(12:00):
tiny dog.

Speaker 2 (12:01):
Okay, here's what I remember. He hates that dog and
he puts it down a trash shoot.

Speaker 3 (12:07):
This is the opposite of what I thought, as good
as it guests was about. I thought he loved that dog.

Speaker 2 (12:12):
Okay, I'll do this as quickly as I can, but good,
this is gonna be a chaos episode.

Speaker 3 (12:17):
Good good good.

Speaker 2 (12:18):
So the dog, if I'm remembering correctly, belongs to Greg
Kannear's character, who is the neighbor of Jack Nicholson.

Speaker 3 (12:26):
I didn't know he was in it. I thought it
was just Jack and the Dog.

Speaker 2 (12:29):
No, and Helen Hunt is in it as well of
Twister Fame and Jack Nicholson. He's like a romance novelist,
but he also hates women. He's like super misogynistic.

Speaker 3 (12:40):
Okay, funny because it's true.

Speaker 2 (12:43):
And I think his neighbor is Greg Kannear and Greg
Kannear is gay. And I don't remember the relationship between
him and Helen Hunt. I don't know if they're friends.
I don't know the relationships. I don't remember exactly how
the dynamics work, but I think Jack Nicholson is in
love with Helen Hunt. And the reason I watched it

(13:04):
so many times is because the Jack Nicholson character has OCD,
but it's depicted in a very like Hollywood way.

Speaker 3 (13:13):
Like touching the door knob kind of way.

Speaker 2 (13:15):
Yeah, like flipping on the light switches and things like that.
But I did a research project in high school on
OCD and I watched the movie as research. I hope
that I was like in the movie depicts it in
a way that's not necessarily very authentic for most people.
I don't know what I said. Who knows it was

(13:37):
the early two thousands, but anyway.

Speaker 3 (13:39):
You can't be held accountable.

Speaker 2 (13:40):
No point is he hates the dog and he tries
to kill it.

Speaker 3 (13:44):
Basically, well, that's certainly not what I thought, as good
as it gets was about, and I will not be
watching it.

Speaker 2 (13:51):
I don't think it's the movie for you anyway.

Speaker 3 (13:53):
A disappointing movie overall in cinema, right, But okay, so
you were watching Titanic that year, We're not watching My
Best Friends by okay exactly.

Speaker 2 (14:02):
And I also want to acknowledge that this is generally
a beloved movie. It was at the time. It was
well received by critics, it was a huge box office hit. Yeah,
people still ride for this movie. I don't want to
take that away from anyone.

Speaker 3 (14:18):
No, you're wrong, but it's okay.

Speaker 2 (14:22):
I think this is a rancid, little bastard of a movie.

Speaker 3 (14:26):
I feel like we haven't like mutually ragged on a
beloved movie at a while. This is going to be thrilling,
and there are things I think that aren't necessarily redeemable
about it, but are interesting the various versions you pointed out.
A gay character is a character that is explicitly gay.
I mean, I still have notes, but same, you know, like.

Speaker 2 (14:47):
There's some things, but overall, I'm just like kind of
tired of being asked to empathize with or root for characters,
especially awful men like Michael in this movie, who are horrendous,
and I don't want to do it.

Speaker 3 (15:04):
Yeah, that's the thing, is like Jewels, I don't know,
like regardless of gender. I think it's the interesting gender
point is that we are rarely asked in the space
of any movie to this day to root for a
lead who is a woman and also is clearly in
the wrong and is being conniving and evil, especially in

(15:25):
this genre. Like I get it, that's interesting. Jewls never
won me over it, Like there was no I don't
know if it's like nineteen ninety seven there were people
who were rooting for her anyways, or if they were
just like it's interesting to watch, And I know that
there was like some cultural discourse over like people being
overly critical. We can talk about that in the production

(15:46):
area where they were like, if my daughter did this,
I would kick her out of my house. And you're like,
all right, relax, but yeah, being asked to root for
two horrible people in a romantic comedy in a love
triangle means the only character I like ends up with
someone horrible, and that is a non starter for me.

(16:07):
That's not why I come to this genre. I would
watch like an erotic thriller if I wanted to watch
a likable character get completely fucked over.

Speaker 2 (16:15):
Well, I was gonna say, it's interesting that we're covering
this movie right after His Girl Friday, because they are
both rom coms that involve a love triangle, with one
character trying to you know, win back or steal their
ex lover from their current fiance. It's true, but I
think my best Friend's wedding is like almost less progressive

(16:38):
than His Friday, which is a movie that came out
nearly sixty years earlier.

Speaker 3 (16:42):
I agree, I agree. I mean, you can listen to
our His Girl Friday episode. I just everything about that
movie just works for me better. It's at least in
part of performance thing because Dermnt mulroney, He's no Carrie Grant. Unfortunately,
I just yeah, if Julia Roberts can't win me over, like,
we've got a album at the base level of the movie.
You know so well, I guess let's talk. I feel

(17:06):
like people are but everyone's blood is boiling. They're like,
they don't get it. They don't understand the subversive nature
of nineteen ninety seven.

Speaker 2 (17:13):
And maybe you're right, maybe you're right, who knows. Let's
take a quick break while we all mulleed over, shall we?

Speaker 3 (17:31):
And we're back and we're freaking back. Wow.

Speaker 2 (17:34):
Wow, it feels so good to be back. No, yes,
here is the freaking recap. Oh, okay, my best friend's wedding.
All right, let's hear it. What do you got? We
meet Julianne Potter. She's played by Julia Roberts.

Speaker 3 (17:50):
Doing one of my favorite things, which is having a
name so close to the actor so that they don't
get confused or scared.

Speaker 2 (17:59):
Yeah, she's like, I will only play characters with my name,
but maybe plus a few extra letters.

Speaker 3 (18:04):
I know. I'm like, have some faith in Julia Roberts.
She can remember a second name, but they weren't ready.

Speaker 2 (18:10):
No. She is a restaurant critic. Basically, she's the critic
from Ratatui.

Speaker 3 (18:16):
I wrote that too. I was like, it's like if
the Ratatue critic was obsessed with my dad. Like, it's
such a weird movie for me.

Speaker 2 (18:26):
She's in New York City, ever heard of it? And
she gets a phone call from her alleged best friend,
Michael O'Neill, who needs to talk to her urgently, and
she is at dinner with her friend.

Speaker 3 (18:43):
George, her actual best friend, her.

Speaker 2 (18:45):
Actual best friend played by Rupert Everett of Shrek Too Fame, Yes,
and Julianne tells him about how she and Michael had
this like hot month of romance back in college, although
she broke it off, but they stayed best friends and
they swore an oath that by the time they were

(19:07):
both twenty eight.

Speaker 3 (19:09):
And then you're just like, oof.

Speaker 2 (19:12):
If they hadn't yet gotten married to other people, that
they would get married to each other, and you're like,
brutal twenty eight you.

Speaker 3 (19:20):
Guys, you guys, even in nineteen ninety seven. It's a
bummer that feels, yeah, but again one of the subversive
things that like it maybe speaks to how binary gender
swaps of movie tropes rarely ends up creating anything progressive really,

(19:41):
because there's a lot of lines that Julia Robert says
that you would normally hear out of. I kept thinking.
I was like, oh, she's like doing Freddie Prince Junior
and she's all that kind of line reads where it's like,
there's not a bet, but there is like these series
of deceptions that she is driving. At every single point,
she lies every word out of her mouth lie, So

(20:01):
she is the decepteur. Yeah, that doesn't make it. I
don't know. I just didn't. It didn't win me over,
but it is interesting, which is what we say about
movies that we don't like.

Speaker 2 (20:14):
Uh huh.

Speaker 3 (20:15):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (20:15):
Anyway, So she tells this to George and he's like, well,
what if Michael is calling you because you're both about
to be twenty eight and he wants to marry you.
And she's like, oh my god. So she calls him
back and she's like, te he remember that night that
we made the oath about getting married to each other.

(20:36):
And he's like, yeah, but I'm calling to tell you
that I met someone and she and I are getting
married this Sunday, four days away.

Speaker 3 (20:45):
This movie is not shy to introduce a plaque contrivance.
That much is for sure, and it doesn't need to
make any logical sense with like what is happening or
what we're told. People's relationships are something that really bugs
me about this movie and a reason that his girl
Friday works for me in spite of very similar plot

(21:06):
dynamics where two out of three people are evil and
the nice person does get fucked over, but you understand
that the two characters who are evil have this like
unbelievable chemistry, Like so even when they suck, it is
at very least interesting to watch. But I feel like
we are only ever told that they're best friends, were

(21:27):
never shown why they're best friends, and so it's just
like impossible, or at least it was like impossible for
me on every viewing of this movie to get on
board with the fact that they're actually best friends because
they just feel so clearly not. And also he's trying
to cheat on his fiance the whole movie, the whole movie,
and they're like, Julia Roberts was really fucking You're like,

(21:47):
they're both fucked up. They should have ended up together.

Speaker 2 (21:51):
They deserve each other. I kept getting hung up on
the logistics of the wedding stuff, because again, it's like
if you have a wedding generally unless you're eloping, which fine,
sounds like a great idea.

Speaker 3 (22:04):
This is a billion dollar wedding. Literally, this is like
a rich guy's wedding, right.

Speaker 2 (22:10):
So, Cameron Diaz's family, her character's family, are billionaires.

Speaker 3 (22:14):
They own the Chicago White Sox, White Sox Wild.

Speaker 2 (22:19):
Plus, like a media empire or something like that.

Speaker 3 (22:21):
They own sport magazine, do they not?

Speaker 2 (22:26):
Probably so she doesn't know about the wedding of her
again alleged best friend until four days until it's about
to happen. Would they have not planned this wedding many
many months in advance, if not years, spent all the money.
It would be a very opulent wedding. You would think
they're billionaires. Also, billionaires are obviously evil, horrid people, and

(22:52):
they don't like to mix class with other Like this
guy's a well, that's the fret working class guy, Like
they would have like vetted the shit out of him.
I don't don't think they would have approved of the
Michael character.

Speaker 3 (23:03):
I'm just like see I originally because I forgot the
like minutia of this movie, but I thought like he
was just inviting her really late because he wasn't sure
if he wanted her there because he secretly loved her,
so I thought it was like a last minute invite.
You're like, well, that's kind of interesting. That could be
the source of conflict between the two of them. Why
didn't you invite me sooner? But then, yeah, what less

(23:24):
than forty eight hours before the wedding, Cameron Diaz has
not yet chosen a maid of honor, Like this is
and and you know obviously goes out and saying you
don't need a maid of honor. But this is a
very conventional wedding story. We're being given this character would
have a maid of honor, and the reason that we're
given she doesn't have one makes no sense.

Speaker 2 (23:48):
She's like, I have no friend, she said, her maid
of honor fractured her pelvis. Yeah, she had one and
then she got an injury.

Speaker 3 (23:55):
She had one friend she had and then her only
friend broke her pelvis, which just the way that Cameron
Diaz's character was written was so all over the place,
because it was like, why does this twenty year old
college student have not a friend to her name? If
we are told as the movie moves on, that she's

(24:16):
a very lovable person, Like, why wouldn't she have friends?
Of course she'd have friends if she's as nice as
we understand she is by the end of the movie.
It makes no sense rich people buy friends. She could
have bought am made of honor. It just doesn't mean literally, Yeah,
I don't get it, Like why and again, you're totally
I didn't even think of that, but like, yeah, how
restrictive you know, like this is like this rich family's

(24:40):
royal wedding or whatever.

Speaker 2 (24:42):
Hm.

Speaker 3 (24:42):
They wouldn't let her get away with no maid of
honor till two days before.

Speaker 2 (24:46):
They wouldn't have even let her marry this.

Speaker 3 (24:49):
Guy, Like they shouldn't.

Speaker 2 (24:50):
You know it?

Speaker 3 (24:51):
Now I'm on the side. This is the other thing
that was getting frustrated, Like I keep siding with the billionaires,
where I was like, leave this sweet family alone.

Speaker 2 (24:59):
Because is they're not written to be billionaires.

Speaker 3 (25:02):
No, they're written to be like middle class from the Midwest.

Speaker 2 (25:05):
Right, They're not succession characters.

Speaker 3 (25:07):
Yeah.

Speaker 2 (25:08):
I don't think the writer of the movie like understood
what billionaires are like anyway.

Speaker 3 (25:14):
Well, as we'll talk about, there were so many changes
made in this movie that I feel like stuff from
past drafts were just not updated to reflect with the
characters were supposed to be that or they're like rich
people they don't have a thought in their heads, which
can be very true. Yeah, but in this way, it
was like it maybe feel deeply sad for Kimmy the

(25:34):
way that like we're told, like, here is this woman
who it seems like is a very sweet person. And
then also in the like conventional power broker sense, has
everything going for her but has no friends. She's surrounded
by this wealthy family, none of whom have any interest

(25:55):
or insight into her interior life. Because as this whole
emotional and he is like this pretty like fucked up
thing is happening to Kimmy, no one around her seems
to notice or care. And this is her beloved family.

Speaker 2 (26:10):
Care that her fiance is forcing her to drop out
of college and follow him around the country.

Speaker 3 (26:17):
That's something that like His Girl Friday, is more progressive
than that. Like it. You could listen to the episode,
but there was never a point where it's like the
idea that the lead woman and his girl his Girl Friday,
if you will Hildy Hildy, Yes, that Hildy was going
to leave her profession. The movie feels that's not right.
And by the end of the movie, you know whatever,

(26:39):
through some blah blah blah blah. Listen to the episode,
but she is returning to her career and she seems
happy with that. But that like that detail that Kimmy
is being forced to drop out of school because she's
twenty years old, and we are told she doesn't want to.

Speaker 2 (26:57):
She doesn't want to at all.

Speaker 3 (26:59):
And at the end we have no reason to believe
because Michael the character changes not a lick, not at all.
At least Julia. This is like, at least Jules. She
is despicable, she's horrible, she does only horrible things, but
at least she grows a little by the end, and
she has to apologizes. She admits false things that male
characters in her position almost never do. Whether you like

(27:20):
her or hater, I don't really like the character, but
at least she does grow By the end of the movie.
Michael stagnant. He's still gonna make his twenty year old
wife drop out of college, and it's just like I
hate this guy. Okay, sorry, we're at the beginning of
the recap.

Speaker 2 (27:34):
Yeah, all right, So after this phone call with Michael
where he tells her that he's met someone and is
getting married. This makes julian realize that she's in love
with Michael, and now she has four days to break
up his wedding so that he will hopefully choose.

Speaker 3 (27:54):
Her stakes Steaks, Steaks.

Speaker 2 (27:57):
Then we meet Michael. This is dormit.

Speaker 3 (28:02):
He's crying again. Dermott our number one fan is crying.

Speaker 2 (28:06):
Again, Dermit mulroney. And we meet his fiance, Kimmy played
by Cameron Diaz, also of Shrek fame, who, upon meeting Julianne,
asks her to be Kimmy's maid of honor because of
the thing we just discussed of her original made of

(28:28):
honor being injured. And so they go to a dress
fitting together and then Michael walks in on Julianne in
her bra and underwear and he's like, oh wooga, hubba hubba.

Speaker 3 (28:43):
And then you're just like I no matter what happens,
I will never like this character. Nothing will make me
like this character.

Speaker 2 (28:52):
Nothing. She's visibly uncomfortable. He barges in, he doesn't apologize,
he stays, and then he hits on her. Meanwhile, well,
his wife in the future. It's like in the next room,
but because he expresses this like hint of attraction toward Julianne,
She's like, oh, okay, I got this. I can pull

(29:12):
this off. So Julianne decides to try to sabotage Kimmy
and Michael's relationship. Julianne tells him that she's super comfortable
showing affection now. She reminisces with Michael in front of
Kimmy to make her feel jealous and excluded. She takes

(29:36):
the couple to a karaoke bar to humiliate Kimmy because
she knows that Kimmy's a horrible singer. But her plan
doesn't work because everyone finds her horrible singing to be endearing.
Then something with Michael's job happens, and it's kind of confusing,
but as we said, he's a sports writer. And Julianne

(29:58):
orchestrates this plan and to convince Kimmy to get her
dad to offer Michael a job at his billionaire company,
which Julianne knows that Michael will be insulted by and
he'll think.

Speaker 3 (30:14):
That, well, yeah, because he's her best friend, which we're
told every ten minutes or so to justify the whole
chasm of like no chemistry between these two actors.

Speaker 2 (30:27):
Right, right, So he proceeds to act like the biggest
asshole in this scene, which I want to unpack a
little bit later, but basically, he's screaming at Kimmy, being like, oh,
you think I'm not good enough? Blah blah blah.

Speaker 3 (30:45):
This scene is awful, and I feel like it's made
out to be maybe a class issue, but it's not
a class issue. He's being terrible to her. He's berating her.
He's telling her my ambitions are martin important than yours
and if you can't accept that, we can't get married,
and like you're just like this guy needs to be

(31:07):
put through a human sized shredder, and like I cannot
believe that he and we can talk about because it's
not that women did not have hands on this script,
as we'll get to, but the fact that this movie
was like written and driven by men is so obvious
because it's like, imagine a woman doing anything that Michael

(31:29):
does throughout this movie, they would be eviscerated. Like he
is worse than Julianne. But there is like nothing in
nineteen ninety seven that I could find that was critical
of him. It was all critical of Julianne, who is bad,
but it's the oh god, he's so terrible in that scene.
I found it very upsetting because and also like Kimmi
is like crying, falling Julianne. This asshole is like sitting

(31:52):
to the side like ha ha ha, it's working, and
you're like, I hate you fucking clowns. You guys are clowns. Ah.

Speaker 2 (31:58):
He's being emotionally andverbally abusive to Kimmy.

Speaker 3 (32:02):
In public too. You're like, oh my god.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
It's really upsetting.

Speaker 3 (32:07):
I hate this character.

Speaker 2 (32:08):
But this plan of Julian's also ends up backfiring because
Kimmy apologizes and groovels and said, you're right, I was
so wrong. We'll do things your way.

Speaker 3 (32:19):
Horrible to watch because you're just like I think that
that is a combination of poor writing and like, I
don't think this is how it was intended, but like,
as someone that young in an emotionally abusive relationship like
that can happen, and it's presented in this very lighthearted
like I don't know, I just was very upset by

(32:40):
their relationship dynamic, like consistently.

Speaker 2 (32:43):
Yeah, And the scene ends with like, oh no, Julian's
plan was thwarted because Michael and Kimmy kiss and make
up and everything seems fine again.

Speaker 3 (32:54):
Like I hope the bean falls on her. I hope
the Chicago Bean, which I don't even know if it existed,
then I wish it just uprooted and rolled over on
her and crushed her and Michael too. What if they
got killed by the bean and that was the end?

Speaker 2 (33:09):
God well, because like everything's fine between Michael and Kimmy.
What that actually means is that Michael will keep the
job that he has but still force Kimmy to drop
out of school.

Speaker 3 (33:24):
Kimmy is still dropping out of school. Kimmy is still
being like I think, forced to move away from her
family something like that.

Speaker 2 (33:31):
It reminded me of the first Twilight movie where Bella
the reason she moves to Forks, Washington is because her
mom gets that baseball player boyfriend and so he's always
going to be on the road and her mom wasn't
going to be around because she was going to travel
with him. So Bella was like, I have to go
meet some vampires.

Speaker 3 (33:52):
I don't know if we had the brain cells to
talk about it at the time, but it's like if
Bella's mom was in that secure of a relationship, like
I would have waited for my to graduate high school.
Come on, it's not an emergency, it's not a fire,
it's a minor league baseball boyfriend. Grow up anyways, grow up?

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Okay. Then Julian's friend George shows up to help Julian,
and he's like, just tell Michael the truth, tell him
that you love him, and she's about to do that,
but then she sees an opportunity to try to make
Michael jealous by pretending to be engaged to George.

Speaker 3 (34:29):
And now we have a classic dated contrivance where we're
laughing because he's gay.

Speaker 2 (34:36):
He's gay, right, And she goes along with this lie
for a while, including during a very long scene of
a rehearsal lunch where everyone is singing. I say a
little prayer by Deanna d'An warwick.

Speaker 3 (34:52):
Good for dann Warwick. I hope she got a fat
check for this movie. But like I mean, it has
no bearing on I understand why, Like it was like
funny and jarring at the time. As someone with no
nostalgia for this movie, I think that seems annoying and weird.
So long, so this movie is written by Ronald Bass, right,
very very famous writer, has won a lot of awards

(35:13):
and written a lot of influential movies, some of which
we've covered, some of which we probably will have to
at some point. I'm talking Rainman, Sleeping with the Enemy,
The Joy Luck Club, Waiting to Exhale, Dangerous Minds, My
best Friend's Weddings, Stepmoms, How Stella got her groove back,
like very influential writer who and the reason I say
that there were women's hands on this where he famously

(35:35):
had a small writer's room of younger women who would
work with him, who were called the Ronettes and the Ronettes,
which is like a whatever old timey motown joke. But anyways,
Ronald Bass, who was old of this, but he wrote
this movie in his fifties. The reason I think that

(35:56):
he was in some ways able to write contemporary is
because he had young writers collaborating with him. I don't
know what the full deal with the Ronettes is. I
know that we've brought it up before. I know that
I've like talked about it on the show before. I
don't remember what movie we would have been it might
have been when Stella got her groove back, that the

(36:18):
concept of the Ronettes first came up. But anyways, this
scene was a huge point of contention for the director PJ.
Hogan and Ronald Bass and the Ronettes. Ronald Bass and
the Raetts were like, why do you want to add
a full musical number in the middle of a scene?

(36:39):
And PJ. Hogan was like, trust me, it'll be awesome.
And ultimately, I mean, I guess audiences loved that scene,
but I think Ronald Bass and the raw Nets were correct.
I think I thought it was annoying. But I'm a
hater for this week. If I was enjoying this movie
and then that happened, maybe I would like it.

Speaker 2 (36:57):
Maybe, But you're telling me that a family of billionaires
goes to a wedding rehearsal lunch at some red lobster
ass seafood restaurant, right, Burry the Kudahs.

Speaker 3 (37:12):
No, Well, the thing is like speaks to how little
we know about Kimmy. Because if I'm being generous, if
they're a family that's like new money, right, and.

Speaker 2 (37:21):
Like new money like Molly Brown.

Speaker 3 (37:24):
Molly Brown style, Mollie would go to a red lobster
in spite of being very wealthy, So like, maybe they're
a family that came from humble beginnings and then got
a lot of money, but we never have enough insight
into the family to understand is this like old money
generational wealth? Like could this make sense? But I just
found it weird for how many of these characters there are, Yeah,

(37:45):
Kimmy's I mean not like I was like, I need
to know Kimmy's family better, but even like a character
who isn't Kimmy that could better characterize this family vibe
wise would be really helpful because I just like can't tell.
I can't tell if like Kimmy is willing to go
into this marriage. I mean, I do believe that she

(38:06):
really loves Michael, but it's such an unhealthy relationship, and like,
I just don't understand why she is the way she is,
unless it's just like she seems pretty emotionally neglected by
her family. But we're also supposed to be like they're
so funny because they're written like cartoon characters, especially like
the weird Cousins or whatever idea What was going on there? Anyways,

(38:30):
Sorry that scene it's annoying.

Speaker 2 (38:33):
So frustrating. Okay, So then George leaves and Julianne tells
Michael that she and George are not actually engaged, that
she had broken it off with George a while ago,
and so, you know, another lie. But Michael is like, well,
that's good because I actually got really jealous when I

(38:54):
thought you were going to marry George. And she's like, okay,
maybe this is working. Then Julianne and Michael are on
a boat together. The vibe is very romantic. They're slow dancing,
They're talking about their feelings and their past relationship. She
almost tells him that she loves him, but does not.

(39:14):
Then the thing with Michael's job comes up again, because
this obstacle has to happen twice for.

Speaker 3 (39:21):
Some reason I don't know where.

Speaker 2 (39:25):
Julianne sneaks into the office of Kimmy's dad, Walter and
writes an email to Michael's current boss from Walter at
Sport Magazine at Sport Magazine, asking him to basically fire
Michael so that he'll accept a job at Walter's company.
But then julian decides against sending this email, but the

(39:48):
email accidentally gets sent anyway.

Speaker 3 (39:51):
This fucking plot as email, like it's so silly where
she I don't know how hard it was to x
out a window in or like to not save the
draft or like whatever. It's it's a very whatever. It's
very plotty, and I know that this movie is like
operating on farce logic, and so like when we put

(40:12):
it under a super close microscope, like it's supposed to
be a farce, but it's not working as a farce.
So all of these plot logic things stick out like
a store thumb. Why does the email stay open to
sport magazine? Come on?

Speaker 2 (40:24):
Yeah, well because she saves it for later. And then
Walter is, like, I had some email drafts I had saved, Hey, assistant,
send them all out, and that's how it gets sent.
But like I just have to move on, Okay. Yeah,
Michael finds out about this email that he doesn't realize
Julianne had sent. He thinks it's coming from his future

(40:48):
father in law, and he thinks it was Kimmy's doing that,
like she put her dad up to this, and he
gets so furious that he calls the wedding off. But
nobody tells Kimmy's family that the wedding is off. So
Michael goes to the wedding brunch. I guess to handle
things face to face with Kimmy, although he decides he

(41:11):
will marry Kimmy after all, after a series of like, hey, Julianne,
go be my messenger and like you go talk to
my future wife, and then like she's just lying back
and forth and I'm like, you're adults. Well Kimmy barely is.

Speaker 3 (41:27):
But like, yeah, Kimmy, I would say, is she is
an adult. I don't want to like treat her like
her She.

Speaker 2 (41:33):
Is an adult, but she's twenty, like her brain is
still developing.

Speaker 3 (41:37):
Yeah, Julia Rowerson, Dermott, mulroney. They don't have any such excuse.
They're just grown people fucking around with a college student's
entire life and for what.

Speaker 2 (41:52):
For what? Anyway, it's decided that the wedding is back on.
But then Julianne finally worked up the courage to tell
Michael that she loves him, and then she surprised kisses him,
which Kimmy sees, so she runs off.

Speaker 3 (42:09):
Right, And it's the rare surprise kiss where the surprise
element of it is of consequence, which I thought was interesting.

Speaker 2 (42:15):
Right, Yeah, true, So now Michael is chasing Kimmy through Chicago.
Julianne is chasing Michael. Julianne catches up with Michael at
the train station. Kimmy is nowhere to be found, and
Julianne confesses to writing that email, and so he's furious

(42:36):
and he's like your pus and pond scum and blah
blah blah.

Speaker 3 (42:39):
But the way he's furious is still like flirtatious, where
he's like you're piece Like it feels like a kink discussion,
where it's like you're a piece of shit, You're a
fucking scum. You're just like, what is going on with you? Guys?
Just get on a train and go to hell. Like
drive take the next Amtrak to the core of the earth.

(43:02):
You fucking losers.

Speaker 2 (43:04):
I hate them U. Anyway, Julianne realizes that she lost
right and that she needs to set things right, so
she helps Michael to find Kimmy and they bring her
back to the wedding place, and the wedding happens. Michael
marries Kimmy, and then Julianne is at the reception. She's like, Wow,

(43:29):
I did the right thing, even though for the past
ninety minutes I did everything wrong. And then she gets
a phone call from George who surprise is there at
the wedding, and then they dance and that's the end
of the movie. So let's take another quick break and
we'll come back to discuss.

Speaker 3 (43:56):
And we're back. Yeah, oh gosh, where to begin. Well,
if it's okay, let's begin at the beginning, the beginning
of this movie. Moment one. I don't like it. The
beginning of the movie makes no sense to me. It is,
you know, it is like a ViBe's kind of introduction.

(44:16):
But it's just like brides with bridesmaids singing, wishing and
hope and there's no it's nothing. It's about nothing, and
it's presenting this very I mean, I guess you could
say it's presenting this very idyllic idea of like the
white American bride, and that is like, sure, the rug

(44:36):
pull of this movie is that who we think is
our heroine is not going to get that. But like
I found that again, I just didn't like it. I
didn't think it did anything. But okay, I wanted to
offer context for this movie, and I say that with

(44:57):
also knowing that I think it's interesting. It doesn't really
change my opinion of the movie, but I do think
it's interesting. This was published in Vulture. It is an
excerpt from a book called From Hollywood with Love by
Scott Maslow. I haven't read it, but it is a
book about the production and the subversive elements of My

(45:20):
best Friend's Wedding. It is interesting because I didn't realize
another movie that's been on my to watch list forever
is Muriel's Wedding. We've gotten a lot of.

Speaker 2 (45:29):
Requests for it, oh many.

Speaker 3 (45:31):
And this movie was directed by the director of Muriel's Wedding,
so he's also kind of mister Wedding. And I guess
that he got this movie in part because Julia Roberts
had really liked Muriel's Wedding. So he's an Australian guy
who directs movies about weddings. Something to know. This was

(45:52):
a Ronald Bass script. He obviously was already very successful.
He'd want oscars. He's written all of these very successful
movies with the raw question mark. And there is a
passage in the story I think is interesting because it
does boil down what, at least on its face, was
the versive about this movie at the time. So a
quote from the piece it's describing when PJ. Hogan got

(46:14):
the script. When Hogan sat down to read the script,
he discovered, to his surprise that my best friend's wedding
was a closer cousin to Muriel's wedding than he had expected.
What really surprised me was that it wasn't really very romantic,
he says. In fact, my experience of reading the screenplay
was Wow, I'm not sure I like her very much.
And usually in romantic comedies, everything the main character does

(46:35):
in order to win love and find happiness is totally justified,
even if it's kind of awful. What Meg Ryan does
to Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle is kind of awful,
And as I was reading it, I was thinking, God,
it's that damn romantic comedy problem. She's kind of awful.
And I got to the end and she didn't get
the guy, and I thought, oh my god, that's the point.
This takes the form and smashes it on the floor.

(46:58):
Most romantic comedies are about how all fair in love
and war, which is something I've never really believed in.
And this was a screenplay about how all is not
fair in love and war. It was a romantic comedy
that wasn't very romantic. I think that this is, on
its face, basically true, right, Like, yeah, I'd agree, but again,
it just feels like every discussion I've seen of those

(47:22):
elements of this movie are undercut by a lack of
insight into who these characters really are, the tropes that
do still appear, and the fact that I think that
the male lead of this movie is just like irredeemably horrible,
and so I like the fact that he ends. I
would rather he end up alone, and like not ideal

(47:47):
for Kimmy either way, but I would like a more
just outcome to this because I feel like, you know,
Juliane ending up alone was perceived by audiences at the
time as wow, a sort of unusually just outcome to
a romantic, high jinks kind of movie, for sure. And
the other thing that I learned about the production from

(48:07):
this essay was that they had to reshoot the ending
more than once, and that test audiences. Originally there was
a lot of pressure put on Ronald Bass to have
Julianne end up with someone, so every draft of the
movie does end up with her not getting the you know,

(48:27):
Dermott mulroney, okay, but the original ending had her meeting
oh my gosh, what's the guy from Sex and the
City and My Big Fact Creek Wedding, John Corbett. Oh yeah,
So in the original ending, John Corbett shows up and
she meets John Corbett. She still calls George and she's like, oh,
this sucks. I'm lonely, I lost the movie. And he's like,

(48:50):
maybe there's someone awesome, Like George doesn't come to the
wedding at the end, she just meet the guy named
John Corbett. It kind of reminded me of the end
of Five Hundred Days of Summer, another annoying.

Speaker 2 (49:01):
Movie about a villain who is positioned as the protagonist. Yeah.

Speaker 3 (49:07):
Yes, and at the end of that, you know, he
meets a girl named Autumn and you're like, great, now
he's gonna ruin were unto her? Like, yeah, So that
was the original ending because there was a lot of
pressure for producers of like it's Julia Roberts, she has
to end up with somebody, which is inherently sexist trope,
but audiences. Test audiences hated that ending, which again is

(49:28):
kind of complicated, but they were just like in a
way that felt like maybe a little sexist as well,
where they were like, this woman deserves nothing like, you know,
maybe an over correction, but they didn't like the ending.
And also in the original ending, there is never a
scene where Kimmy stands up for herself. I guess that
that baseball stadium climax was added, but audiences didn't like that.

(49:55):
Kimmy never advocated for herself the entire movie, so I
guess that was because of poor test screenings that that
scene was added, which I do think is interesting and
says you know, how you feel about it. Good that
are indifferent is up to you, But like does say
something about nineteen ninety seven, like the things that people
were responding to, because I think that like the scene

(50:17):
where Kimy stands up for herself, it's not enough because
it's still ultimately undercut by the plot of the movie,
which I guess makes more sense once you know that
it wasn't originally there. But I am glad that that
scene is there, you know, I just wish that Kimmy,
Kimmy's character was able to recognize how this was not

(50:39):
the fault of one person that, like Julianne, certainly deserved
to have a new asshole riped for her. Fine, but
the fact that it is very much presented as like
Julianne's the other woman, and the other woman narrative always
erases any fault of the man that she's going back to,

(50:59):
and so that scene was again I see what they
were trying to do, but it's still like this movie
just like doesn't work if you treat Michael as as
on the chaffing block for morality as Kimmy or Julianne is,
but he's not. So it just yeah, but anyways, that's
the production stuff.

Speaker 2 (51:20):
Yeah, very interesting. Shall we kind of go character by character? Yeah,
let's set starting with I guess Julianne.

Speaker 3 (51:31):
Not Julia.

Speaker 2 (51:32):
Julianne, not Julia Roberts, no Julianne. She's presented as a
bit of a guy's goal.

Speaker 3 (51:41):
Definitely.

Speaker 2 (51:41):
Yeah, she's not like the other girls. She they spell
this out in dialogue that she's not up for anything
conventional or that's assumed to be a female priority, including marriage, romance,
or love. She hates weddings. She's only cried three times
in her life. And I guess it.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
Yeah, just like quality is frequently attributed to men, not
based in nothing comes from somewhere, but like being like,
isn't it cooler? When it's a I mean, and it's
weird because I sort of, you know, not completely remembering
how the movie goes. Specifically, it's very weird that, like
Julia Roberts is presented as a guy's gal, and then

(52:21):
camer Diaz is presented as no one's goal, and so
there's just not room for any friendships between women by design.
Like it's so I thought that Cameron Diaz was going
to be presented as a girl's girl, pejorative, but they
can't even do that. They're just like, for some reason,

(52:42):
no one likes this sweet, wealthy, conventionally attractive model. Everyone
hates her. You're like, what, what are you talking about?

Speaker 2 (52:52):
It's more just that she's so undercooked as a character
that there's no rhyme or reason to why she she
doesn't have more friends.

Speaker 3 (53:03):
I just feel so bad for you. I feel I'm
overreacting with Kimmy because I just feel protective of her.

Speaker 2 (53:08):
Because she's also twenty and she's not even of legal
drinking age, and she's.

Speaker 3 (53:13):
Still drinking her own wedding. This should not be happening.
No a plot contrivance that I felt neutrally towards. It's
just a rom com thing is that Julia Roberts is,
of course a writer. Her love interests also a writer.
Her actual best friend George also a writer. Does this
ever come into the plot? Are they ever seen writing

(53:37):
other than one evil email?

Speaker 2 (53:40):
No?

Speaker 3 (53:40):
These are the jobs. There are three jobs these kinds
of people can have. Writer with infinite PTO is one
of the jobs. And also her boss is taking PTO
to do various hijinks.

Speaker 2 (53:56):
Yeah, he flies from New York to Chicago twice in
a matter of two days.

Speaker 3 (54:03):
There is no one I love in the world at once,
sure to us, But that's because that's because in the
original script he doesn't fly back. The second time. He
never comes back, and then Rupert Everett's character was testing
so well that's why they ended up deciding to bring
him back, which I think is one of the more

(54:23):
effective subversive things that happens in the movie. Is that
like whatever that like, friendship can be just as fulfilling
a thing as what you're told you're supposed to be
doing at a certain stage in your life. And there
are other ways to find joy and fulfillment. And I
appreciate that message, but it was added basically in post

(54:47):
like it was kind of there because people really liked
Rupert Everett versus anything else.

Speaker 2 (54:53):
Yeah, right, and back to the julian guy's girl only
has friends who are men, and then when she meets Kimmy,
the rest of the movie hinges on. I mean, there's
like varying degrees of what we see here where there's

(55:13):
like the scene at karaoke where Julianne is like deliberately
being cruel to Kimmy and like trying to exclude her
from the conversation, trying to make her feel jealous, things
like that. Other times she's being more pleasant to her,
but it's because Julianne is like conspiring and needs Kimmy's help.

(55:35):
But really she's just using Kimmy to try to get
Michael to hate his own fiance. Like there's all these
things that she does. Anyway you look at it, it
boils down to like this is a narrative about two
women who are competing against each other over the affections
of and looser exactly because there's that scene where and

(55:58):
this is understandable, but like, I mean not Kimmy's behavior
in the scene where she like stops an elevator to
be like I'm jealous of you, right, but like she
expresses that to Julianne, which I think is honestly like
an interesting thing.

Speaker 3 (56:15):
Right, I don't hate that, And I feel like the
way it was actually written and the way it's introduced
in the movie, I thought like the direction of it
was weird, but like on its face, it's not something
you're expecting. Like, I feel like that was the first
indication that, like, Kimmy is smarter and more emotionally intelligent
than we are being encouraged to give her credit for

(56:37):
because we're seeing all of these tropes she's young, she's friendless,
she's a bad driver because question mark like women, because
she's rich or a woman to strive, Like, I don't
really know what the joke was there, but like you know,
we're basically being thought like she's a spoiled brat, right,
and she doesn't even realize what's going on. She's a

(56:58):
brainless Like I feel like they're just playing on blonde tropes.
They're playing on rich girl trubs, they're playing on young
woman trubes. And then they do bring that to a
screeching halt, and we know that Kimmy, of course she's twenty,
but she was not actually born yesterday, Like she does
realize that this is a weird dynamic and that her

(57:19):
asking Julianne to be her maid of honor is kind
of this over correction made out of insecurity, and she's
honest about that, which is more emotionally intelligent than the
other two demonstrate the entire movie where it's like, yes
is admitting to I mean, it's kind of a confusing too,
because it's like she's also not wrong. It's not like
she's being paranoid or I don't know. But then that

(57:43):
introduced like she is threatened by this other woman, which
is such a frequent thing that like there are two
primary women characters in this movie and they are pitted
against each other. And also in the world of this movie,
that is true, like he is.

Speaker 2 (57:59):
Like emotionallyting on Kimmy with Julianne in several scenes.

Speaker 3 (58:03):
With the elevator scene, I think that, yeah, it was
over the top, but at its core, what happens in
that scene, I wish it had just happened in maybe
a room, but it's a rob com. It had to
happen in a stopped elevator while Julia Roberts was having
a panic attack, But what Kimmy communicates there is pretty

(58:25):
vulnerable and reasonable, and yeah, it just demonstrates like she
can read the room like this is weird. And it
is the scene that pissed me off the most is
when I forget what they're on their way to, but
like all three of them are in a car and
then Julia Roberts and Dermott Maroney just get out of

(58:47):
the car and go on a date. Yeah, and Kimmy
feels weird about it. She's like, are you sure? Should
we should we do this? Are you sure? And they're like, yeah,
we're gonna go on a date, see you later, sucker,
And I was like, what the fuck? Like I felt
so horrible for her, where she clearly did not want
them to and understandably did not want them to get

(59:10):
out of the car and go on a date due
to they were getting into a monogamous marriage the next day. Yeah,
but then Dermot Moroney just goes on a date. Where
are the essays about that? Because yes, yes, Julianne is
being forty chess pto ratitudey critic, like she's being bad,

(59:33):
she's acting out, but like Dermot Rammoni is not being
dragged out of the car. He's like, yes, I would
like to go on a date on this the evening
of my marriage. Like he's being bad and he's being
flirtatious the entire time they're together.

Speaker 2 (59:48):
Openly in front of her, his fiance.

Speaker 3 (59:51):
And her family, and You're like, a true billionaire family
would have him killed. Yeah, Like they would just have
him die under mysterious. They would chap aquittic him, like
off of in the like Chicago river, he would get
chap aquatic. Yeah, it's just so frustrating.

Speaker 2 (01:00:11):
The scene that really, and we already alluded to this,
but just the worst thing I've ever seen is this
is the scene where Kimmy pitches, oh, why don't you
work for my dad? And the way he lashes out.
He screams at Kimmy, accusing her of lying. He's like,
why don't you start by being honest for one second?

(01:00:33):
And she's like I am.

Speaker 3 (01:00:34):
You're like, excuse you? What about the rest of the table, right, And.

Speaker 2 (01:00:40):
To Kimmy's credit, she says, what like, all of a sudden,
I'm supposed to drop out of school, forget my family,
forget my career, forget about all the things I had
planned for my life, and he responds, well, forgive me
for screwing up your plans. I'm just glad that I'm
hearing about this before it's too late. What am I
supposed to do with my life? Huh? I work a

(01:01:01):
low paying, zero respect job, which I happened to love.
And then Julianne tries to interject, saying like, hey, Michael,
maybe this is actually a good opportunity for you, and
he's like, oh, yeah, well, how come you never took
some sellout job. That's it's because that's not you and
that's not me either.

Speaker 3 (01:01:19):
Just say it.

Speaker 2 (01:01:20):
I'm not good enough for you, Kimmy, and she's now
crying at this point. She's like, yeah, you ever said that?
And she didn't, she didn't, and then he continues to
lay into her. He's like, fine, I'm the sexist, insensitive
asshole and it's like yeah, yeah, correct, And now Kimmy

(01:01:40):
is bawling. She's pleading, like groveling at his feet, being like,
you're so right. I was so wrong. We settled this,
I renegged. It wasn't fair. You have to forgive me,
blah blah blah, and it's just like no, Kimmy, like
you started up like it's this started out in a
way because she's again she's advocating for herself.

Speaker 3 (01:02:00):
Which was at Julianne's suggestion. Though too it was like
it wasn't even really her idea to advocate for herself,
which just sucks and is like how whatever inherently anti
woman the character of Julianne is where she has no
issue with like the only relationship we see her have
with another woman is an attempt on her life.

Speaker 2 (01:02:25):
Basically, it's just so sad. It's so sad, so upsetting.
And then this is followed by a scene where Julianne
tells George how wonderful she thinks Michael is, and it's
like if I saw my best friend, my quote unquote
best friend speak to their fiance the way that Michael
speaks to and treats Kimmy, I'd.

Speaker 3 (01:02:44):
Be like mortified.

Speaker 2 (01:02:46):
I have to get a new best friend because this
person is evil.

Speaker 3 (01:02:50):
Yeah, And the fact that like the subtext of that
scene is that this dynamic has been was like Julianne's idea.
I feel like a lot of why the movie is
encouraging us to think Michael is a good guys. First
of all, because it was written and directed by men,
but also because I feel like there's this implication that

(01:03:11):
his emotionally abusive behavior is only happening because Julianne set
him up to do that, and that's just like not
how people work. Because the question that she quote unquote
like tricked Kimmy into asking was not even irrational, like
it was it was Julianne being like, oh, I know

(01:03:32):
what will trigger my emotionally abusive friend's abuse tactics. Let
me do that. And then she does and it happens,
and she says nothing, and you're like, I hate her,
and it's so miserable. It's miserable. I hate it. And meanwhile,
like in that scene, Kimmy is once again being the

(01:03:54):
only honest character in the movie, which also introduces kind
of this dichotomy where Michael ends up with I don't know.
It sucks because it's like Julianne is objectively an asshole,
Like I don't think that, Like I think that some
of the over the top reaction to her of like
burn the Witch was like, well, no, no, let's not

(01:04:15):
kill her. She's an asshole. I'm not like eager for
her to have a reward for all of this bad behavior.
But I feel like it also does introduce this like
because there's no criticism of Michael, and he goes with
like the woman who is more demure and more willing

(01:04:35):
to bow to his will and like things that we
know Julianne. Julian's not giving her career up for a guy,
of course, not like there's nothing about her that would
indicate that, but Kimmy will, and so that sort of
makes her a like morally superior. Like it just felt
like the things that Kimmy was willing to sacrifice, because

(01:04:57):
she never ends up getting those things back, It is
pulled into this idea of like what does a morally
good woman look like in a way that feels really regressive.
And again, like you're saying, like behind his Girl Friday
that came out sixty years or so before this, and
you're just like pretty fucking bleak, Yeah.

Speaker 2 (01:05:21):
Because the movie ends in a way that we are
to assume Michael is making zero compromises. He's expecting his
wife to make every compromise and we're all just supposed
to be okay with that.

Speaker 3 (01:05:36):
I mean, it doesn't make anything that Hilly does to
her por fiance who she's just like batting around like
a fucking cat toy the whole movie. It doesn't make
it less emotionally abusive, her like less shitty what she does.
I think why it works is a number of things.
First of all, the two assholes end up together, and

(01:05:57):
good for them. She is not forced to give up
her career and at least at very very lee. Also,
all the performances are better, the direction is better, the
script is better. This always helps. But at least you
know the person who she's fucking over is an adult,
you know, Like it does feel like ultimately, someone who

(01:06:19):
has very recently become an adult is being forced to
sacrifice their future for someone we understand to be an
emotionally abusive, emotional cheater. But again, the thing with the
surprise kiss, right, the surprise kiss and the whole George like,
well did he kiss you back? Did he kiss you back?

(01:06:40):
Which is the first time I've heard a surprise kiss
interrogated on screen, which is interesting. But the fact that
he doesn't kiss her back is made as a wholesale
everything else he's done doesn't count because he didn't kiss
her back, And you're like, that is just like ridiculous.
That sucks. He's given such a carte blanche. I have

(01:07:02):
another thought. You're ready. I'm sorry, I'm talking too much.

Speaker 2 (01:07:06):
No, I'm ready.

Speaker 3 (01:07:07):
This movie got me worked up. It got me pissed off. Okay.
In defense of Julianne, Okay, I can't defend any of
her actions, but something that I think is interesting. I
noticed it where part of what is subversive about this movie,
and I think effectively subversive is that the villain is
the main character, is the movie star, and is a woman.

(01:07:30):
These are all things we don't normally see in a
movie in this genre. True, Okay, I am glad that
Julianne was like, had to confront the severity of her actions.
I am glad that Kimmy, like we were talking about,
it only goes halfway, because Kimmy is only calling Juliana
out as if she is the only perpetrator here, when

(01:07:51):
there are two people perpetrating this, and the more consequential
person is about to ruin her life. But you know,
I'm not upset that Julianne was called out for her behavior.
I think that makes narrative sense. I do think that
most men in that same role and position would not
have to answer for this so severely, and I don't

(01:08:15):
think that a man in this character's position would have
to meaningfully apologize. I mean, like they have Julia Roberts
on her knees being called the worst piece of shit
who's ever taken breath, and like, as a rom com
viewer seeing a woman in this position, for like, if
not the first time, but one of the first times,

(01:08:37):
it feels like, Okay, so if we're putting a woman
in the villain role, she's going to have to spend
the last fifteen minutes eating shit at unprecedented rates. Where
you know, if you put Freddy Prince Junior, he's like, yeah,
so I've been lying to you and that's why your
life sucks. Do you want to be my girlfriend? Like
my bee? I don't even really have a like moral thing,

(01:09:00):
because I don't think that this character deserves to be
let off the hook for what she's done. But I
do feel like the reason that, or at least part
of the reason that she we're really meant to sit
in the consequences of her actions is because it's a
woman in this role, right.

Speaker 2 (01:09:16):
And because women are expected to be morally upstanding and
they're not allowed to misbehave, and just the standard for
behavior for women is very different than it is for men.
I also think it's interesting that the apology that she
gives to Michael again on her knees, groveling, insulting herself,

(01:09:39):
calling herself upon scumb blah blah blah, versus the apology
slash acknowledgment of her behavior that she gives to Kimmy
in the bathroom of the stadium is very different. She
kind of doesn't really even apologize to Kimmy. She says like, yeah,

(01:09:59):
I did all these bad things, but I lost, so okay.
And then you're like Kimmy like no, forgives her and
hugs her and she's like, oh my god, blah blah blah.
But it's like a very different apology slash like a
non apology that Julianne gives to Kimmy, and I think
that she owes her a far more significant apology.

Speaker 3 (01:10:23):
I totally agree Kimmy is owed an apology by both
characters in this movie. And we certainly don't see Michael
apologize for anyway, and based on how he talks to her,
he never will, right, And you're totally right, like the
point of that scene being added was for Kimmy to
stand up for herself in some way and for Julianne

(01:10:46):
to be called out explicitly by the person who is
hurting the most from this. But it's like Kimmy doesn't
ultimately really get anything out of that scene. She does
get to, you know, the catharsis of being like you
fucking suck, which is true, and like you have publicly
humiliated me on purpose in spite of the fact that

(01:11:06):
I am a stranger and almost a child. And it
works on paper, but yeah, if you think about the consequences,
how does Julianne respond. She's mostly embarrassed that she's been
humiliated like this. It doesn't feel like she's genuinely feeling
remorse for what she's done. She's just upset that she's
being yelled at in a bathroom and she's upset. And

(01:11:28):
this is why I mean, And I don't know at
this point, I really don't know how this character's being written,
because this character's being rewritten. But I don't know if
she really feels bad about what she's done or she's
just embarrassed that she lost, you know, like HM. At
the end of the movie. I do sort of get

(01:11:49):
the feeling that like she has grown in that at
the beginning of the movie she thought she could do this,
and at the end of the movie she realizes that
she couldn't. But I still am unclear. And again, this
is like a valueless thing, like if you like Julianne, like,
because everyone does fuck up, not like this, but everyone
does fuck up. Like I feel like plenty of people

(01:12:10):
have done things that they are embarrassed about in hindsight
romantically right, sure, and sometimes it does involve hurting other
people blah blah blah, rarely this bad, rarely this evil.
I will say there is a change in her character
from the beginning to the end of the movie, But
by the end, I was just like, I cannot tell

(01:12:31):
if she feels bad about what she's done or she's
just embarrassed that she lost. I don't know, yeah, and
I don't even think that like if at the end
of the day she's like, I'm a little evil and
I'm just pissed that I lost this round. Like I
can accept that whatever. I don't need her to be
morally perfect, but I just like it wasn't clear to
me which it was, and Also, I'm like, right, she's

(01:12:52):
supposed to be friends with Michael after this, absolutely not,
you know, like I this is the last time she'll
see either of these.

Speaker 2 (01:13:00):
Yeah. I wonder if this will affect her relationship with George,
because George witnessed her be pretty awful to several people,
And if he were any upstanding person, he'd be like, hey, Julianne, uh,
maybe stop trying to break up a marriage. See.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
If I'm George, I would extort her for money. Hmm, okay,
I would be like, you better not ever give any
of my friends a bad restaurant review. You're wrapped around
my finger. You're gonna give my friend Remy the rat
the best review he's ever seen.

Speaker 2 (01:13:35):
Wow?

Speaker 3 (01:13:35):
Yeah, Rupert Everett, was he in Ratitui because he should
have been.

Speaker 2 (01:13:40):
Oh, I'm not sure, But let's talk about George while
we're on the yes subject. So he is a gay
character and is played by a real life gay actor.

Speaker 3 (01:13:54):
A real life gay actor. Yes, Oh my gosh.

Speaker 2 (01:13:58):
Which is something that I found surprising for a mainstream
movie in the nineties. First of all, that it has
a openly gay character at all, and that they cast
a gay actor to play that character. Because, as we've
discussed on countless occasions in this era and obviously before,
if there were gay characters present in a movie at all,

(01:14:22):
they were often either the butt of a homophobic joke,
they were written and performed using reductive stereotypes, they were
not allowed to be explicitly queer, and they were just
queer coded any number of things like this. All of
that is generally avoided with the George character. However, you know,

(01:14:42):
he's only there to serve the story of the straight protagonist.
He doesn't have any romantic storyline of his own.

Speaker 3 (01:14:50):
No. Yeah, it's a very half step in the right
direction where his character is adhering to some tropes and
others not. I do think that he is. Ultimately he
and Kimmy are the moral centers of the movie, and
that George, I don't know. I mean, he's a little chaotic,
right Like at certain points he calls Julian in to reflect,

(01:15:13):
and then other times he's like, what if you did
this convoluted email scheme? You know, Like so he is
a little all over the place. He's flawed like any
of us. And he does yes, like you're saying, have
unlimited PTO to assist his straight friend in various nefarious schemes,
which is another very trophy type of trope. But I

(01:15:34):
agree that it is a I don't even know if
it's a step in the right direction. Certainly unusual for
the time that there is an openly gig character played
by I. Actually I don't know that Rubert Everett was
completely out at this time. I've seen different versions of
the timeline, and I didn't want to pathologize about it,
but he had played many gay and queer characters in

(01:15:56):
the past. It was something he was known for. And
he also, because of how gay actors are typed, played
a lot of villains. So that was something kind of
interesting about the casting process where I forget who it was,
but someone was like, oh, Rupert Everett has to play George,
and they were like, why he always plays a villain
who dies, and they're like, listen, he has to play George.

(01:16:18):
And then he ended up getting cast, and I think
he is like very much a high point of the movie.
There are all these trips. I mean, even at the
beginning of that, like the thing that had me rolling
my eyes the most outside of the fact that obviously
the thing I'll say that's good is that we know
he has a life outside of Julia Roberts, because we
see him at dinner parties, he's throwing, we see him

(01:16:39):
at events, we see him doing different things. But he's
not allowed to have a relationship.

Speaker 2 (01:16:43):
Well, he mentioned someone is though he's talking about a partner. Yes,
I forget the man's name, but he's referring to we
never see him, right, or if we do see him,
we don't realize that's his partner, because that's how underthought
that relationship.

Speaker 3 (01:16:59):
I don't even think underthought. I think it's strategic about
how gay characters could or could not be shown in
mainstream movies.

Speaker 2 (01:17:05):
At that time.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
But I don't know, because you also think about the
bird Cage came out around this time too. It wasn't
like a time like nineties popular movies were kind of
a crap shoot, We're about to cover Priscilla Quid to
the Desert, like it wasn't verboten. But they're clearly I
don't know if it's I'm assuming it's the studio, but
like there clearly is a line like, well, this is

(01:17:27):
as much representation as will allow. We would not allow
a visible partner.

Speaker 2 (01:17:32):
Right, Certainly they can't touch or kiss. That would be no.

Speaker 3 (01:17:37):
The thing that like really solidified, like, okay, this movie
has I remember George's character because he is one of
the more fun characters, even though even Rupert Everett can't
save how annoying I find the karaoke scene. Not the karaokes.
Actually I like the karaoke scene with Camera Diaz, the
Dean Warwick.

Speaker 2 (01:17:55):
Yeah, that scene the lunch singing the song.

Speaker 3 (01:17:58):
Yeah, I thought that the Cameron de Has karaoke scene.
He's very charming. Anyways, even though she should divorce him.
I do feel like Kimmy is like sort of a
future Real Housewives cast member.

Speaker 2 (01:18:11):
Okay, maybe five, like twenty.

Speaker 3 (01:18:12):
Years down the line. Anyways, Yeah, with George. The thing
that really sold me on, like, Okay, this movie is
not going to cross a certain line of representation. Is
when in the introduction scene or no, I think the
first time that she's in Chicago and he's in New
York and they're on the phone, he says the word
gay whispered while he's at home. He says, even though

(01:18:35):
I'm you're like, you're at your apartment like that. That
is the values of the movie. That's not you. It
was just like, Okay, you can say gay but quietly,
you know, and that's how this is represented.

Speaker 2 (01:18:50):
Unless he's like making a joke about how he's had
to conceal that part of himself, I could maybe see that.

Speaker 3 (01:19:00):
I think that that's even likely, But I just feel
like the representation of a gay character in this movie
is gay but whispered instead of stated. But again, whispered
in nineteen ninety seven wasn't nothing, but it's still like,
I mean, you can point to a number of successful
movies around this time in the same genre that had

(01:19:23):
openly gay characters in a relationship that did tremendously well,
and we're very loved because The Bird Cage came out
the year before this movie, So I think that it
is still very like more than you're used to for
the time, certainly, but also like this I think goes
below the bar for even nineteen ninety seven in terms

(01:19:44):
of representation, just because of the lack of a life
that George has outside of it. I do like that
he's kind of the moral center of the movie. I
kind of like his and Julienn's relationship. I like that
he's her boss. I like that he is like they're
they're both a bit nefarious, but like they're just kind
of trying to I don't know. I don't dislike their friendship.

(01:20:08):
I think they'll stay friends forever. And I think he'll
be like, this is Julianne. She's my friend who's kind
of evil, you know, like when she goes to his
wedding in the future, when it's legal, that will be
her actual best friend's wedding.

Speaker 2 (01:20:24):
Yeah, it'll be like twenty eighteen or something.

Speaker 3 (01:20:28):
Yeah, it'll be twenty fifteen and they'll be getting married
in New York and she'll be like, oh, this is
my best friend's wedding. Not that I want a sequel
another version of this movie, I don't. Although this movie
was I think adapted twice internationally, Like it was so
successful that there was a I believe a Chinese version

(01:20:48):
of it, and then one other one.

Speaker 2 (01:20:50):
Am I wait, I think there's a version that came
out in Mexico.

Speaker 3 (01:20:54):
Yes, just a couple of years ago, in twenty nineteen.

Speaker 4 (01:20:57):
Yeah.

Speaker 3 (01:20:57):
So it is a very enduring thing. It was almost.

Speaker 2 (01:21:00):
A musical and a Bollywood movie was inspired partially, okay
by this movie.

Speaker 3 (01:21:07):
So and I honestly, I mean as frustrating as I
find this movie, it does feel weirdly old Hollywood in
the internal mechanics of it. But unfortunately, having just covered
his girl Friday, it might have worked better and more
subversively a half century before it came out, because it
was just doing nothing for me with nineteen ninety seven.

(01:21:29):
This is not a plot that belongs in the age
of computers. Yeah, there was almost a Broadway musical that
came out, but Covid thwarted it. And yeah, I don't know.
Do you have anything else to talk about for this movie.

Speaker 2 (01:21:44):
It's a very very white movie. Yes, people of color
have nothing in terms of character or even spoken lines.

Speaker 3 (01:21:53):
And in all white New York and Chicago, which is
a really a two hander for famously diverse cities that
in this movie are only white.

Speaker 2 (01:22:02):
I was grossed out by the scene where Julianne they're
in like the whatever like box at a white Sox game,
and she's talking to Michael's teenage brother Scott played by
Christopher Masterson, the brother of disgraced sex criminal Danny Masterson.

Speaker 3 (01:22:25):
Fun fact, Julianne is like.

Speaker 2 (01:22:28):
You have to dance with me at the wedding, and
she holds him really close and It's just like, why
are we normalizing adults being sexually suggestive toward teenagers.

Speaker 3 (01:22:40):
Which is objectively you know, give her take a couple months.
What Michael is doing. He's marrying a twenty year old.
I hate these I hate these freaks. They're freaks.

Speaker 2 (01:22:52):
Yes. The other quick thing was Kimmy describing her other
bridesmaids as debutante sisters from Nashville who are basically vengeful sluts,
which does pass the Bechdel test because she's describing them
too well.

Speaker 4 (01:23:08):
I also clocked that to Julianne, which also again just
speaks to the dissonance of Kimmy's character, because Kimmy at
the end of the movie would never say that, but
for some reason, Kimmy at the beginning of the movie
would say that, because we're supposed to hate her at
the beginning, and so she says awful things.

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):
And like, when there's no like this movie, I feel like, really,
I don't like it on the first watch, But on
the second watch, it's somehow even more frustrating because it's
so obvious that really every character, but basically every character
that isn't Julianne or Michael, are written moment to moment
to serve the plot, and there's no consistency because I

(01:23:44):
really don't think third act Kimmy would talk about people
that way, like she's the sweetest girl in the world.
By the end of the movie, she's flawless, which is
another thing where it's like, oh, the person who deserves
to get married is has to be willing to sacrifice everything.
It has to have no flaw right.

Speaker 2 (01:24:01):
Yeah. Also, one of the bridesmaids tried to give a
blowjob to an ice sculpture and got stuck to it.

Speaker 3 (01:24:10):
That was me. I thought that was like, yeah, I
don't have any like I just was like, weird, weird joke,
weird joke. What are we supposed to think about? This family?
Just kind of yet another moment of like what is
this family like? Confusing?

Speaker 2 (01:24:29):
I don't know, but yeah, that's pretty much all I
had to say. Yeah, the movie does pass the Bechdel test.
It's in that aforementioned occasion and probably a couple other times,
but not enough. But yes, yeah, because mostly it's conversations
about Michael if Julianne and Kimmy are talking to each other,

(01:24:52):
for example. But our nipple scale though, yees, where we
rate the movie zero to five nip bulls based on
examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I oh boy, again,
I appreciate its attempts at subverting rom com tropes. Yeah,

(01:25:17):
I generally appreciate that in a movie, because there's a
lot of rom com tropes that should be subverted. But
the ones that especially should have been subverted, such as
the man being an awful person and ends up with,
you know, the love of his life anyway, that one

(01:25:38):
doesn't get subverted. And there's really no attention called in
the movie to how heinous of a person he is.
All of the attention is called to Julianne, and that
feels gendered. So that's pepe poo pooh for me. Yeah,
I think I'm only going to give the movie like

(01:25:59):
a half nip. Yeah, and maybe it's because I just
on a personal level don't like the movie, But I
just I can't find that much that's redeeming about it, honestly. Yeah,
maybe I'll bump it up to a one. No, I'm
gonna stick with point five and I'm gonna split that

(01:26:21):
half nipple between Paul Giamatti, Oh My movie and Harry
Sheer who's in the movie?

Speaker 3 (01:26:31):
I was, yeah, I was watching this with Grant there.
I said it, who I know?

Speaker 2 (01:26:38):
Do you have a boyfriend?

Speaker 3 (01:26:40):
I know?

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
Oh my gosh, it's bad.

Speaker 3 (01:26:42):
It's bad. He's great, But yeah, it was we were
both having a bad time, and the moment Paul Giamatti
was on screen for less than a minute, it was
like Grant took an audible sigh of relief. He was like, oh.
I was like, oh, do you feel safe? Like he
seemed to suddenly feel safe. But it is a movie
that really made us both But like, I don't know,

(01:27:05):
it's a movie that makes you feel hostage in the
present day. So I'm also going to give it half
a nipple. I appreciate the attempt and understanding a little more.
I really appreciated the essay by Scott Maslow that sort
of detailed what the attempt was. I just think, again,
having women in the room does not guarantee you're going

(01:27:27):
to get a better script, because people are people. But
I cannot imagine a world where the script would have
gotten worse with more women in the room, because I
think you're right, like, the subversive elements are interesting, but
they still ultimately fall victim to very gender tropes, which
is that we are willing to inquire one character's villainy
and not another's, and that just the whole movie unravels.

(01:27:51):
The way Kimmy has written, I think is just like
bad and does not like sells the character and the
performance short. I don't even like Cameron Diaz as an actor,
but I felt bad for her having to play this character.
And Julia Roberts I do like as an actor, so
I felt really bad for her having to play this character.
And you know, Dermott mulroney as we you know, he's crying.

(01:28:11):
We can't. I can't say another bad thing about him.

Speaker 2 (01:28:14):
Yes, I'm sorry dermltlrmalt uh.

Speaker 3 (01:28:20):
And again like if this is a movie you ride for,
it's a movie you ride for. I ride for a
lot of movies that don't hold up. But yeah, So
I'm going to give the half nipple at this movie
to Julia Roberts because I like her, and also I
like that it was definitely a creative risk for her
to take this part. She always played the uh you

(01:28:42):
know young Angenou who won at the end. I think
like her being willing to take this at the peak
of her career was a very cool choice. Reading about
the production you I learned that she was really committed
to like moments where she was being encouraged by the
director to seem more like she was like, no, what's
written on the page is like in the karaoke scene. Specifically,

(01:29:06):
I wish it was in the yelling scene. I would
be curious to know what she thought about that. But
like in the karaoke scene, I guess she was being
encouraged by I don't know if it's a director or producer,
someone on set with a lot of power who is like,
you should be on board with Kimmy singing by the end,
and she's like, no, that's not what my character would do.
My character hates her. My character is going to like
sit in like getting one up on her, and you know,

(01:29:28):
like she was just so game to play a villain.
And I really wish that the movie was written in
a way that would have made that a more rewarding experience,
because it's a good idea executed very poorly. So I'll
give my half nipple to Julia and that's all I
have to say.

Speaker 2 (01:29:45):
Yeah, well, there you have it, folks. That's my best
friend's wedding. Hey, you want to follow us on Instagram,
Well you can.

Speaker 3 (01:29:57):
Well do it.

Speaker 2 (01:30:00):
And more importantly, subscribe to our Matreon, where you get
two bonus episodes every month for five dollars a month,
and it's always on some brilliant, amazing genius theme that
Jamie and I cook up. Plus you get access to
the entire back catalog of bonus episodes and that can

(01:30:20):
be found at patreon dot com slash back to cast woo.

Speaker 3 (01:30:26):
And also you can get our merch at teapupic dot
com slash the Bechdel Cast and we'll see it's the
end of summer. Summer is waning, summer is gone, and
now it's time to go back to school. And oh yeah,
that's right. No, that's more you because you, I know

(01:30:47):
you don't like to forget up, but you love to
go back to school because my.

Speaker 2 (01:30:50):
Gosh, yeah, are you referring to back to school?

Speaker 3 (01:30:53):
Is your favorite? You love back to school? You couldn't stop.

Speaker 2 (01:30:58):
I love well. Also because I teach school at Caitlin University,
It's true where I teach my screenwriting classes and I
actually have a few classes starting up in September. Because
she is back to schochool exactly, So if anyone's interested

(01:31:19):
in those, you can go to my website Caitlindurante dot
com slash classes. I have an intro class, so if
you're brand new to screenwriting or you need a refresher
or anything like that, you can take that class. And
then I also have workshopping classes for people who are
in the process of writing something and you want feedback

(01:31:40):
on your materials. So, wow, back to school. What's happening?

Speaker 3 (01:31:45):
And this has nothing to do with school, but listen
to my other podcast, sixteenth Minute of Fame as well. Yes,
it is so hard to make, so please listen to it.
All right, shall we go to I mean, it's kind
of our thing. Let's go to a wedding with our friend.

(01:32:06):
So many wedding style I know, it really is. We're
each other's go to deal with it, and that's a
true best friend's wedding. Bye bye.

Speaker 2 (01:32:19):
The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
Caitlin Derante and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Volskrosenski. Our logo in Merch
is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit

(01:32:42):
linktree slash Bechdel Cast