‘He Stole My Heart’: Why My Best Friend’s Wedding is the movie I feel the happiest in | Julia Roberts

IWhen Harry Met Sally asked whether men and women could be friends without sex getting in the way, My Best Friend’s Wedding was clear and unambiguous. If your fiancé has a girlfriend — especially one who has a megawatt smile and Julia Roberts’ long legs at her best — prepare for drama. Even if you are Cameron Diaz. That’s the exact scenario we’re faced with at the start of my favorite chaotic film, which grossed just under $300 million at the global box office when it debuted in 1997, and also stole my heart as a melodramatic 11-year-old.

We were really spoiled with romantic comedies in the ’90s — trust me, I’ve seen them all — but my best friend’s wedding is something special. To watch the PJ Hogan classic (who also directed Muriel’s Wedding) is to immerse yourself in a warm bath of nostalgia, complete with brick-sized cell phones, indoor smoking and Burt Bacharach classics. It has it all: a car chase, a one-man lunch complete with dancing lobster claws, and even a mishap with an ice sculpture of Michelangelo’s David. But he also has the audacity to turn the romantic comedy formula on its head and give us an ending we don’t necessarily expect.

Roberts plays Julianne, a no-nonsense New York food critic who makes a pact with her college best friend, Michael (Dermot Mulroney, Disney’s handsome, if boring, Dermot Mulroney) that if they reach 28 unmarried, they’ll marry each other. Except that Michael is now married to 20-year-old Kimmy (Diaz), which prompts Julian to realize that she is actually very much in love with him. “It’s amazing, the clarity that comes with psychotic jealousy,” says editor Julian George (Rupert Everett) dryly. Cue increasingly manic tricks to ruin the wedding.

Roberts is a bride’s worst nightmare. When I was a teenager in rural Surrey, I didn’t know anyone like these characters, but now I instantly recognize Julianne as one of those women who has no friends, and for good reason. She arrived in Chicago for the wedding, and within minutes, she was referring to the “hot month” she and Michael spent together in college. The impenetrable jokes are constant — poor Kimmy — and Julianne is such a knockout in her lavender satin bridesmaid dress (Kimmy’s former bridesmaid “smashed her lap-line dance over spring break”) that you might be tempted to call the whole thing off right there and then.

But what I love, and have always loved about this movie, is that it refuses to turn Kimmy into a villain in order to justify Julian’s actions. Sure, she screams and drives like a psychopath, but she’s also cute. In fact, none of the characters are completely good or bad, just a little different – like real people (just real people who are very good looking). It’s impossible not to root for Julianne, who is the perfect and chaotic hero. Okay, it’s a bit of a mess, in a Julia Roberts way that almost seems aspirational, but its inability to deal with things in a rational way still feels very human. She’s too scared, broken, and proud to tell Michael how she feels, so there’s nothing to do but make bad decisions and chain-smoke through them, like a normal person. It’s refreshing!

If I learned any lesson from the romantic comedies of my youth, it’s that if you love someone, you go after them at all costs. But my best friend’s wedding suggests that’s not always a great idea. In the end, Julianne puts herself out there, and is shunned. It’s a huge departure from the rom-com code, and although the film feels conventional in many ways, I always appreciated the honesty of its message that love isn’t always enough.

But it’s not all drama. In fact, although this film has a lot of heart, it’s also often silly, which is what keeps it from being sarcastic and makes it rewatchable. My favorite moment is when a serious conversation between Julian and Michael is recorded by some of the wedding guests singing a three-part harmony of Annie’s song with helium-induced chipmunk noises behind them. Meanwhile, Everett is exceptional as the charming and very endearing George, and his comic lip sync to the song “Wishin’ and Hopin'” at the beginning of the film is absolutely perfect – I watch it on YouTube sometimes when I need a cheer.

My Best Friend’s Wedding originally had a different ending, in which Julianne meets a new love interest at the wedding, instead of dancing away from her love interests with George, but apparently it had to be canceled because test audience reaction was so negative. And thank goodness: The movie’s feel-good factor definitely comes from its flawless ending, and the message that friendship is the most important relationship of all. I was single for most of my twenties, and when I watched the movie then, I felt more satisfied seeing Julianne having the time of her life just hours after being rejected by a man, rather than moping. Now that’s a happy ending.