GARY Winick’s exceedingly lame “Bride Wars,” a truly inauspicious start to 2009 at the movies, is interesting only – and very slightly, at that – as a cautionary tale about Hollywood stardom.
It’s a minor blip on the soaring career of Anne Hathaway, who should be receiving an Oscar nomination for her work in the infinitely superior marital comedy “Rachel Getting Married” in a couple of weeks.
But it’s another nail in the coffin for Kate Hudson, whose career has long been headed in the other direction.
Looking at her rap sheet, Hudson has shockingly not done a single film worth watching – and many worth actively avoiding – since she scored an Oscar nomination for “Almost Famous” seven long years ago.
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Ostensibly only three years older than Hathaway in real life, the hard and weary Hudson looks perhaps a decade older than her fresh-faced co-star which – together with their complete lack of chemistry together – makes it hard to accept them as best friends since childhood.
Not that “Bride Wars” is tethered to any sort of reality.
Anything you need to know to avoid wasting your $12 is in the unpromising trailer. In short, Liv (Hudson) and Emma (Hathaway) have fantasized about a wedding at the Plaza since they were girls.
When Emma’s boyfriend proposes – and Liv promptly extorts one from hers – they accidentally wind up with the same wedding date at the same place.
In the real world, best friends with many common pals might turn it into a joint ceremony, but that would result in a movie about one-tenth the tedious 88 minutes required to play this one out to its groaningly predictable climax.
Basically, these women repeatedly try to sabotage each other.
Liv conspires to give Emma an orange fake tan and spreads untrue rumors that she’s pregnant.
Emma manages to have Liv’s hair dyed blue, inundates her with sweets so her ex-pal won’t fit into her Vera Wang wedding gown, and crashes Liv’s bachelorette party.
Sounds like a riot? I’ve seen funnier direct-to-video comedies.
Hathaway, who underplays, fares better than the eyeball-rolling Hudson. Also, the latter’s character is highly obnoxious – and Hathaway is far more believable as a meek middle-school teacher than Hudson is as a high-powered lawyer.
Candice Bergen seems intensely bored as the wedding planner of both women – and she will have plenty of company in the audience.
As for the bland actors stuck playing the hapless grooms, we’ll spare them further embarrassment.
“Bride Wars” may lead future generations to believe that before the Great Recession of the early 21st century, even teachers could save up for a wedding at the Plaza.