When It Made Sense In 1997

Right now, My Best Friend’s Wedding is on – a movie that you should not watch after you have just told your guy friend that you want to be more and he rejects you (not that this happened to me, just so we’re clear).

It’s not even the fact that I have a horrible memory of seeing this movie for the first time that throws me off.  It’s all the things in it that are so unrealistic they make me want to throw something.  When I first saw it, I was 16, so the entire movie made complete sense to me.  Now?  Not so much.

For example:

• Julia Roberts’ character Julianne is 28 and a food critic.  She’s wearing borderline business suits as casual attire, can afford to stay at the Drake and supposedly is immune to falling in love with everyone except Michael.  When I was 28, I could barely afford to stay at the local YMCA, I routinely wore jeans and flip-flops to work and fell in love four times a month.
• This Michael dude is going to marry a 20-yr old willing to drop out of college and travel with him for his job as a sportswriter.  Um, no.  That would never happen.  When you’re on the road and working, it’s not like you have time to devote to your cling-on significant other.  I know when I was interning at Villanova and got to travel to exotic locations such as Syracuse, NY or Storrs, CT, I didn’t have a lot of free time.
• The pact that Michael & Julianne have – if they’re not married by the time they’re 28, they marry each other.  As if being 28 and single is the end of the world and means you’ll die alone (okay for me it might, but for most people that’s not true).
• Michael’s fiancée, upon meeting Julianne, announces that her maid of honor broke her something or other during spring break and she needed Julianne to step in.  Really?  You only have one maid of honor candidate?  No one else?  Two cousins and a stranger are standing up for you but you’re supposedly sweet as pie?  I may have had to repeat algebra, but that doesn’t add up, even for me.
• Michael and Julianne have supposedly traveled all over the world together prior to turning 28.  Were they staying at hostels?  Did they hitchhike?  Again – most people at 28 cannot afford to travel the world on a whim.
• The karaoke bar they go to that is supposedly in the Loop – such a thing does not exist.

Sitting here watching this now, I understand the concept – being bat-shit crazy in love with someone and not realizing it until it’s too late – but no 28-year old that I know has the money to fly to Chicago last-minute, stay at a 5-star hotel, wear business suits and try to sabotage a wedding while her editor/boss condones the behavior.

Also, Julia’s character finds Cameron Diaz’s character in the bathroom of Comiskey Park.  I’m sorry, but if I were running away from my fiancée who I saw making out with Hooch McGooch, I would not go to a ballpark stadium on the south side, even if my dad DID own the team.  I would put my ass on a flight out of O’Hare to the tropical island of my choice.  I know it’s just a movie, but how often to things actually tie up in such a neat little bow, like it did in this movie?

So – this whole movie circles back to the age-old question.  Can men and women ever really be friends?