My Best Friend's Wedding ~ Romantic Comedy Film Week

Today author M.J. Kane shares with us her favorite romantic comedy, My Best Friend's Wedding. I'm seeing that Julia Roberts is one of our romantic comedy favorites around here.

Romantic comedies, be it book or movies, make me smile and remember that love has its ups and downs, and sometimes they happen in the funniest ways. Love doesn’t always happen from Cupid’s Arrow. Sometimes both people don’t fall in love at the same time. We stumble, we trip, we fall into the emotions that catch us off guard and have us doing some of the stupidest things to get the attention of the one we love, changing us from the normal people into bungling idiots.

Thus the reason why My Best Friend’s Wedding is my all-time favorite romantic comedy! I’ve watched it countless times and each time it makes me laugh to the point of crying and loving the fact that the female lead goes from a professional, often feared food critic, to a woman who makes irrational decisions regardless of the end results in order to get her man.

The 1997 film stars Julia Roberts and Dermot Mulroney as childhood friends who made a pact to marry if they are still single by their 28th birthday. Over the years they have traveled together, reached out to each other with middle of the night phone calls, and built their careers. Then, four days for her birthday, Julianne (played by Julia Roberts) is stunned when Michael (Dermont Mulroney) announces he is engaged…and to a woman who is much younger than either of them, twenty-year-old Kimberly (played by Cameron Diaz). The news throws Julianne into a world wind of emotions as she realizes that she is about to lose her best friend to a woman she feels he doesn’t really know. To make matters worse, the bride-to-be asks her to be her Maid-of Honor. Michael is totally in love and it takes a minute before he realizes Julianne is trying her hardest to derail the wedding and get him to marry her. She pulls out all the stops, from faking a boyfriend by using her gay friend/co-worker, to forging documents to get him fired. By the end of the movie both characters are forced to re-examine their emotions and true feelings for one another in order to find their HEA. My favorite movie line:

“He was in love with me every day for nine years!” “She’s known him for what, five seconds??”
And that’s when the fun, crazy, ride on a journey to admitting she’s in love with her best friend begins! I’m not going to tell you how it ends, though, if you haven’t seen it, FIND IT!

(YouTube link to movie trailer) https://youtu.be/T2RzkwK3BtU
This movie inspires me when it comes to writing because it shows just how much we lose ourselves when it comes to finding true love. Though my novels are more Women’s Fiction with more drama than comedy, they do follow the same pattern in storytelling: man and woman fall in love; neither is initially on the same page in the beginning; someone does something out of their comfort zone in order to get the other’s attention and start a romance. Love comes and then the reality of the situation sets in and each must decide if the relationship they are in is what they need to find their own HEA.
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If you are looking for a new series to fall in love with, check out The Butterfly Memoirs. The first novel, A Heart Not Easily Broken, is free on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and iTunes. Be sure to check out the rest of the series, too!
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M.J. Kane is a mother of four, an author, librarian, and blogger about writing and life. You can follow her on social media or visit her website, MJKaneMedia.com for free stories, sneak peeks, and more.
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