MOVIE REVIEW: Bride Wars (PG)

The New Year seems to draw the ladies to the multiplex, at least if release schedules are anything to go by. Last year we had chick flicks P.S. I Love You and 27 Dresses gobble up the early ’08 Box Office, and ’09 begins with a bang as we get not one but two female leads in Bride Wars.

Liv (Kate Hudson) and Emma (Anne Hathaway) are two friends who share a common dream - to have a June wedding at The Plaza Hotel, organised by wedding planner extraordinaire Marion St. Claire (Candice Bergen). When each girls’ boyfriends propose, they gleefully go to Ms. St. Claire’s office and snap up the last two June spots at the Plaza. All is well...until St. Claire’s secretary mixes up the dates and puts the two friends' weddings on the same date. Determined to get their perfect day, the bosom buddies declare war, trying anything and everything to scupper the other’s wedding plans.

It goes without saying this film is not the deepest of affairs, and it doesn’t have to be. No-one’s heading into the cinema expecting Film Noir, and in this sense director Gary Winick (who directed 13 Going On 30) delivers exactly what the trailer promises.  Every type of what Hollywood considers a female stereotype is catered for - the binge eater, the control freak, the put-upon people pleaser, the unhappily married wife. If you’ve got a problem, you’ll find something here to relate to. Couple this with the fact that the men they’re marrying seem to be prioritised several places below a Vera Wang dress or the right ‘type’ of wedding invitation, and it’s very clear who this movie is aimed at, which in some ways is quite refreshing.

The two leads are quite well cast - Hathaway’s mousy demeanour perfectly fits her character’s timid disposition, while Hudson channels her mother at the height of her powers with the brash, overbearing working girl Liv. Needless to say both leads change for the better during the course of the 90 minutes, but not without a lot of slapstick, hair dying, tanning disasters and a genuinely hilarious ‘dance off’ scene.

Consistently funny, quite innocent, containing some great dialogue and even a little bit of a twist at the end, Bride Wars is unashamedly for the girls, although it may not do anything at all for the husbands and boyfriends in the audience.

Bride Wars is out January 9.