Movie review – “Bride Wars” (2009) **

This has a different sort of idea and two likeable stars, but much of it is lazy. It takes too long to turn Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway from best friends into mortal enemies, and when they do the revenge is mild and bitsy. This needed a spine, something consistent, a Pigeon sisters type plot where one of them plotted decent revenge – I kept waiting for the character of Hudson’s brother to be roped in, but he does hardly anything in the film until the end. (Hudson should have tried to get him to break up Hathaway’s relationship or something.) They didn’t need to be best friends – they could have been cousins or age-old rivals or something. Or even if they still wanted them to be best friends, they could have used the sidekicks (Kirsten Johnson and the secretary) more as Iagos – as it is the treatment is tentative and wimpy. They also have the leads say “we don’t want to get our friends involved” – then why even have the characters of the friends. The actors who play the grooms are seriously undercast – whatever happened to stunt casting? Hathaway is pretty and tries hard but Hudson looks tired.