My Best Friend's Wedding 1997

Susan Stark, Detroit News: Emotionally, this is a movie that just doesn't compute. You leave feeling cross, as if you've been tricked. Read more

Janet Maslin, New York Times: [An] obtuse, prettily decorative comedy. Read more

Lisa Alspector, Chicago Reader: The draggy narrative of this 1997 comedy is tough to sit through -- there are even several overproduced musical numbers -- but it does have an intriguing subversive element that I don't want to give away. Read more

Kenneth Turan, Los Angeles Times: My Best Friend's Wedding feels repetitive at times, but its star power and willingness to undercut convention come through at the end. Read more

Gina Fattore, Chicago Reader: In the eleventh hour, a little romance creeps into this distinctly unromantic comedy. Read more

Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly: We don't feel much of anything. Read more

Rick Groen, Globe and Mail: Every once in a long while, along comes a refreshing change like My Best Friend's Wedding, a movie whose appeal rests largely on its knack for defying our expectations by riffing off, even undermining, a familiar genre. Read more

James Berardinelli, ReelViews: My Best Friend's Wedding has a bit of an edge and enough intelligence to keep it from drowning in the kind of mawkish sentimentality that often makes this sort of movie hard-to-swallow. Read more

Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times: The screenplay has never been on autopilot; it just fooled us into thinking it was, in order to sneak up on the unpredictability. Read more

Ruthe Stein, San Francisco Chronicle: [Julia Roberts] is at her vibrant best. Read more

Time Out: The film's brazen amorality gradually freezes the smile on your face. Read more

Leonard Klady, Variety: Anchored by skilled comedienne Julia Roberts, this skewered variation on jealousy and the wrong woman doing battle in the aisles is a winning balance of the familiar and the novel. Read more

Stephen Hunter, Washington Post: A romantic comedy conspicuously lacking either romance or comedy. Read more

Rita Kempley, Washington Post: A misbegotten attempt to update the genre that only proves the enduring -- if not downright inviolable -- appeal of the boy-meets-girl scenario. Read more