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Transcript

My Best Friend's Wedding · The Bechdel Cast

• 0:01
  Speaker 1: On the Bechdel Cast, the questions ask if movies have
• 0:04
  Speaker 1: women and them, are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands,
• 0:08
  Speaker 1: or do they have individualism? It's the patriarchy, zeph and
• 0:12
  Speaker 1: best start changing it with the Bechdel Cast.
• 0:16
  Speaker 2: Hello Caitlin, Hello Jamie.
• 0:19
  Speaker 3: So, in spite of being my best friend, you haven't
• 0:21
  Speaker 3: talked to me in a month. Do you ever think
• 0:24
  Speaker 3: about that?
• 0:25
  Speaker 2: I think that is normal. I think it's also normal
• 0:29
  Speaker 2: that I didn't know about your wedding until just now,
• 0:33
  Speaker 2: even though it's four days from now.
• 0:36
  Speaker 1: Yeah.
• 0:36
  Speaker 3: But we're best friends, and we know that we're best
• 0:39
  Speaker 3: friends because we are always saying it, and that's really
• 0:43
  Speaker 3: the only But we're best friends. Do we have chemistry? No?
• 0:47
  Speaker 2: No, I would say not no.
• 0:49
  Speaker 3: Do we know what's going on in each other's lives?
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: No, not even a little bit.
• 0:55
  Speaker 3: And I would bet Caitlin that you're probably sitting across
• 0:58
  Speaker 3: from your actual best friend right now. But the movie
• 1:03
  Speaker 3: we're in, we'll never acknowledge it, right, it's so wild.
• 1:07
  Speaker 3: George is her best friend, Like yeah, what?
• 1:10
  Speaker 2: And she does admit that at some point she's like, well,
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: my best friend these days and it's like yeah, and.
• 1:16
  Speaker 3: You're like, sorry, it's he's just your best friend. Like
• 1:20
  Speaker 3: you and Michael don't know each other. You guys are
• 1:23
  Speaker 3: horny chaos machines, and I wish you the worst. Welcome
• 1:29
  Speaker 3: to the Backdeor Cast. This is my best friend's podcast.
• 1:33
  Speaker 2: Oh wow.
• 1:34
  Speaker 3: Yeah, and my name's Jamie Loftus.
• 1:36
  Speaker 2: Well, what if someone comes in here and tries to
• 1:39
  Speaker 2: break up this podcast because they're in love with us?
• 1:43
  Speaker 3: They want to make a podcast with us more? Oh wow?
• 1:49
  Speaker 2: Anyway, I'm Caitlin Dante.
• 1:51
  Speaker 3: And this is our podcast where we talk about your
• 1:54
  Speaker 3: favorite movies using an intersectional feminist lens. And we really
• 1:59
  Speaker 3: have been dragging our heels on this one, but it
• 2:01
  Speaker 3: is a movie that simply begs to be discussed on
• 2:07
  Speaker 3: this podcast.
• 2:08
  Speaker 2: It sure does.
• 2:09
  Speaker 3: Okay, here's something that doesn't pass the Bechtel test before
• 2:12
  Speaker 3: we tell you what it is. As I was watching
• 2:15
  Speaker 3: this movie, I was thinking Shrek would be having none
• 2:19
  Speaker 3: of this. You know what I mean? What do you
• 2:22
  Speaker 3: mean killing Cameron Diaz is being mistreated the whole movie.
• 2:27
  Speaker 3: Shrek would be having none of this. Well, caught that
• 2:31
  Speaker 3: joke there.
• 2:34
  Speaker 2: Well, there's another Shrek connection too, because a construction a construction.
• 2:40
  Speaker 3: Wow, that's every dessert we ever have a delicious construction.
• 2:46
  Speaker 2: Rupert Everett voices Prince Charming.
• 2:48
  Speaker 3: Oh, Rupert Everett is a delight in this movie. I
• 2:52
  Speaker 3: think he's one of the movie's few high points. Now,
• 2:56
  Speaker 3: on the other hand, Dermott mulroney, I can't with.
• 3:01
  Speaker 2: This guy, This motherfucker.
• 3:04
  Speaker 3: He is a fucking dud. He is a dud. It
• 3:08
  Speaker 3: is He's just too much. He's not too much. I
• 3:12
  Speaker 3: wish he were more. I wish he were more. Yeah,
• 3:15
  Speaker 3: Dermott mulroney. I feel like this is not our first
• 3:19
  Speaker 3: encounter with Dermott mulroney, and it's just never been pleasant
• 3:23
  Speaker 3: for me encountering Dermott mulroney.
• 3:27
  Speaker 2: Who I'm gonna probably accidentally call Dylan McDermott because I
• 3:31
  Speaker 2: don't know the difference between those two people.
• 3:33
  Speaker 3: Dylan mulrony, I mean, and the names certainly don't help, right,
• 3:37
  Speaker 3: I mean, it is interesting whenever you watch rom coms
• 3:41
  Speaker 3: or movies you know, generally directed at or marketed towards
• 3:45
  Speaker 3: women and fems from any era. You have movie stars
• 3:49
  Speaker 3: who have endured, and then you have sort of like
• 3:51
  Speaker 3: the white guy flavor of the months who thirty years
• 3:54
  Speaker 3: from now, your daughter is like, who the fuck is
• 3:57
  Speaker 3: Dermott mulroney. Yeah, you know, like every generation has their
• 4:00
  Speaker 3: Dermott Mulroney's. What if he was a listener? Oh my god,
• 4:03
  Speaker 3: what if he was crying?
• 4:05
  Speaker 2: Well, I'm sure he's fine as an actor or whatever.
• 4:11
  Speaker 2: It's his character, that's.
• 4:13
  Speaker 3: I'm sure he's fine. I would issue a notes ap
• 4:15
  Speaker 3: apology if if I knew that this slander got to
• 4:20
  Speaker 3: Dermott mulroney. Yeah, I'd be like, I am so sorry, Dermott.
• 4:24
  Speaker 3: I didn't realize the power of my platform.
• 4:27
  Speaker 2: I mean, he's our biggest fan.
• 4:29
  Speaker 3: For all we know, we're in the top one hundred
• 4:32
  Speaker 3: movie podcasts, so and I'm assuming Dermot mulroney is listening
• 4:36
  Speaker 3: to all the hundred of them, so, you know, whenever
• 4:41
  Speaker 3: he gets around to this, my apology start. But boy,
• 4:44
  Speaker 3: what a flop character. I mean, although it did make
• 4:48
  Speaker 3: me laugh a lot because well no, wait, okay, what
• 4:52
  Speaker 3: is the Bechdel Test?
• 4:54
  Speaker 2: Gitlin? Oh right right. It's a media metric created by
• 4:58
  Speaker 2: queer cartoonist Alison Bechdel, sometimes called the Bechdel Wallace Test.
• 5:02
  Speaker 2: It was coined as a goof first appearing in Alison
• 5:06
  Speaker 2: Bechdel's Dikes to Watch Out For in nineteen eighty five.
• 5:10
  Speaker 2: It has many versions. The version we use is do
• 5:15
  Speaker 2: two characters of a marginalized gender have names? Do they
• 5:19
  Speaker 2: speak to each other? And is the conversation about something
• 5:22
  Speaker 2: other than a man? And we especially like it when
• 5:26
  Speaker 2: it's a narratively meaningful conversation. Right, So we'll talk about
• 5:32
  Speaker 2: that later, but in the meantime, I.
• 5:36
  Speaker 3: Have to say one more thing about Dermott mulroney.
• 5:38
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Please, Well, so this won't pass the Bechdel test.
• 5:42
  Speaker 3: No, it won't, it won't. No, I was just thinking
• 5:44
  Speaker 3: about it was making me laugh. The surface level similarities
• 5:50
  Speaker 3: that the Dermott mulroney character has to my own dad
• 5:54
  Speaker 3: in that he is a sports writer named Mike Yes
• 5:57
  Speaker 3: who sometimes struggles to emotionally connect. And I was like wow.
• 6:02
  Speaker 3: But also I was like, was my dad like a supervillain?
• 6:05
  Speaker 3: Was he a dormt mulroney type. No? I did love.
• 6:08
  Speaker 3: I loved the detail that he worked at Sport magazine.
• 6:13
  Speaker 2: It was cracky. I didn't even notice.
• 6:16
  Speaker 3: I couldn't stop noticing it. I mean, it didn't come
• 6:18
  Speaker 3: up with that many times, but the first time I
• 6:20
  Speaker 3: was like Dormitt mulroney, you clown, you said sports wrong.
• 6:24
  Speaker 3: But no he worked at sport magazine. Because later, when
• 6:27
  Speaker 3: Julia Roberts is sending her evil email, ugh, she sends
• 6:33
  Speaker 3: it to like editor in chief at sportmagazine dot com,
• 6:37
  Speaker 3: Like you're just like not sport magazine. Give me a
• 6:40
  Speaker 3: fucking right. I love fake movie companies. They're the best.
• 6:44
  Speaker 2: Yeah, today we're.
• 6:45
  Speaker 3: Talking about my best friend's wedding, a nineteen ninety seven
• 6:47
  Speaker 3: movie about two people who like should really just like
• 6:52
  Speaker 3: they deserve each other. They deserve each other, get out
• 6:54
  Speaker 3: of here, you know, and let's let Cameron Diaz finish
• 6:58
  Speaker 3: college for crying out.
• 6:59
  Speaker 2: Wow seriously, Oh gosh.
• 7:02
  Speaker 3: They had me rooting for a billionaire's daughter. This movie
• 7:05
  Speaker 3: had me in the trenches.
• 7:08
  Speaker 2: What's your history with the movie, Jamie?
• 7:11
  Speaker 3: So this is not a movie that I grew up with,
• 7:15
  Speaker 3: which is weird. I feel like I'm very hit and
• 7:17
  Speaker 3: miss with irrational attachments to nineties and two thousands rom coms.
• 7:23
  Speaker 3: Some I ride for. This is just not when I
• 7:25
  Speaker 3: ever watched growing up. So I didn't see it until
• 7:29
  Speaker 3: a couple of years ago, and I really did not
• 7:32
  Speaker 3: care for it. And I still I'm sorry for fans
• 7:36
  Speaker 3: of this movie. I understand objectively that this movie and
• 7:41
  Speaker 3: then reading a little bit more about the production history
• 7:44
  Speaker 3: of this movie made me at least appreciate what they
• 7:48
  Speaker 3: were going for a little more. But like, I don't
• 7:52
  Speaker 3: like it. I do think it is a like, on
• 7:54
  Speaker 3: its face, a subversive and fun idea for the movie
• 7:59
  Speaker 3: star of the movie to be playing the villain of
• 8:01
  Speaker 3: the movie in a rom com. That's a fun idea.
• 8:05
  Speaker 3: I'm on board for that. And it almost feels like
• 8:08
  Speaker 3: Julia Roberts like Olympics, to like play someone so deeply
• 8:12
  Speaker 3: hateable and still be so likable because due to being
• 8:16
  Speaker 3: Julia Roberts like interesting conceptually, but I just like it
• 8:22
  Speaker 3: just totally flopped so many things and even in a
• 8:25
  Speaker 3: lot of the contemporary criticism or you know, this movie
• 8:29
  Speaker 3: turned twenty five in twenty twenty two, so there were
• 8:32
  Speaker 3: some reflective essays on it, but I still don't see
• 8:35
  Speaker 3: people calling out Dermot mulroney's fucking character for being so like.
• 8:41
  Speaker 3: So I think that this movie was, you know, it
• 8:43
  Speaker 3: written by a very like probably one of the most
• 8:46
  Speaker 3: successful screenwriters of the twentieth century. Weirdly, but like, it
• 8:51
  Speaker 3: just doesn't come together. It just doesn't, and it doesn't
• 8:55
  Speaker 3: come together in a way that I found like pretty
• 8:57
  Speaker 3: confusing and aggravating and gross because for all of the
• 9:02
  Speaker 3: discourse that has apparently been going on around Julia Roberts
• 9:06
  Speaker 3: and Cameron Diaz's character for twenty five years, which is interesting.
• 9:10
  Speaker 3: I also like that Cameron Diaz is presented as if
• 9:13
  Speaker 3: she's going to be the villain and then she's not
• 9:15
  Speaker 3: fun subversion, But it's the Michael character where he is
• 9:18
  Speaker 3: I think Barnunn the most evil character in the movie,
• 9:23
  Speaker 3: and there's like, you know, I've seen criticism of it,
• 9:26
  Speaker 3: but not the degree I was expecting to. Over twenty
• 9:29
  Speaker 3: five years later, it still seems to be like Julia
• 9:33
  Speaker 3: Roberts is evil and it's interesting because of the ending.
• 9:36
  Speaker 3: It is interesting because of the ending, but I still
• 9:39
  Speaker 3: feel like at the end of the movie, Michael and
• 9:42
  Speaker 3: Kimmy getting married is a terrible ending for especially Kimmy.
• 9:48
  Speaker 3: Like I found it so aggravating, aggravating because there were
• 9:53
  Speaker 3: moments where you're like, oh, maybe it's about to but
• 9:56
  Speaker 3: then it never does and it has no interest in
• 9:58
  Speaker 3: being critical of Michael.
• 10:00
  Speaker 2: Mm hmm.
• 10:01
  Speaker 3: I don't like it. I found it very frustrating because
• 10:03
  Speaker 3: there's elements of it that I thought should have been interesting,
• 10:06
  Speaker 3: and maybe under a more confident writing team, could have
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: been interesting. But yeah, I think ultimately a waste of
• 10:16
  Speaker 3: Julia Roberts's time in my opinion. Sure, what's your history
• 10:20
  Speaker 3: with this movie?
• 10:21
  Speaker 2: I similarly did not grow up with it. This movie
• 10:25
  Speaker 2: came out in ninety seven, and that was famously the
• 10:28
  Speaker 2: year Titanic came out, and so I didn't really have
• 10:31
  Speaker 2: time for anything else besides Titanic.
• 10:34
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah, yeah, what else would you have been doing?
• 10:36
  Speaker 2: Even though Titanic came out at the very end of
• 10:39
  Speaker 2: nineteen ninety seven, I cleared my whole year in anticipation.
• 10:44
  Speaker 3: You were getting so high. What else came out in
• 10:46
  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven? I think it was like a kind
• 10:48
  Speaker 3: of fun movie year. Oh you know what, I take
• 10:52
  Speaker 3: it back. You know, you could have been seeing a Hercules,
• 10:56
  Speaker 3: you could have been seeing Disney's Hercules. You could have
• 10:58
  Speaker 3: been seeing Goodwill Hunt or something.
• 11:01
  Speaker 2: Sure, one of my favorite movies also came out in
• 11:03
  Speaker 2: ninety seven, which is the Full Monty.
• 11:05
  Speaker 3: Oh yeah.
• 11:06
  Speaker 2: But other than that, it's kind of a floppy ar
• 11:09
  Speaker 2: for movies.
• 11:10
  Speaker 3: I think my favorite Brother came out in nineteen ninety seven,
• 11:13
  Speaker 3: and so that's important. Okay, I just looked up nineteen
• 11:16
  Speaker 3: ninety seven movies and do you I don't know anything
• 11:20
  Speaker 3: about the movie. As good as it gets.
• 11:22
  Speaker 2: I've seen it several times. I'll answer you all your questions.
• 11:25
  Speaker 3: Do you like it?
• 11:26
  Speaker 2: It is not my kind of movie at all.
• 11:28
  Speaker 3: Okay.
• 11:29
  Speaker 2: So it's more that, like I acknowledge that it's probably
• 11:34
  Speaker 2: a good movie, or I know what's a movie people like.
• 11:37
  Speaker 2: But I am not a fan.
• 11:40
  Speaker 3: Personally, so I've never seen it. But I for some
• 11:43
  Speaker 3: reason had like the DVD cover is emblazoned in my mind,
• 11:46
  Speaker 3: maybe because it was just like on sale a lot,
• 11:48
  Speaker 3: and I was like, oh, yeah, that movie about Jack
• 11:51
  Speaker 3: Nickolson falling in love with a little dog. Because that's
• 11:54
  Speaker 3: the cover. I was like, what could that movie be about.
• 11:57
  Speaker 3: It's just Jack Nicholson looking absolutely in love with this
• 12:00
  Speaker 3: tiny dog.
• 12:01
  Speaker 2: Okay, here's what I remember. He hates that dog and
• 12:04
  Speaker 2: he puts it down a trash shoot.
• 12:07
  Speaker 3: This is the opposite of what I thought, as good
• 12:09
  Speaker 3: as it guests was about. I thought he loved that dog.
• 12:12
  Speaker 2: Okay, I'll do this as quickly as I can, but good,
• 12:15
  Speaker 2: this is gonna be a chaos episode.
• 12:17
  Speaker 3: Good good good.
• 12:18
  Speaker 2: So the dog, if I'm remembering correctly, belongs to Greg
• 12:22
  Speaker 2: Kannear's character, who is the neighbor of Jack Nicholson.
• 12:26
  Speaker 3: I didn't know he was in it. I thought it
• 12:28
  Speaker 3: was just Jack and the Dog.
• 12:29
  Speaker 2: No, and Helen Hunt is in it as well of
• 12:32
  Speaker 2: Twister Fame and Jack Nicholson. He's like a romance novelist,
• 12:37
  Speaker 2: but he also hates women. He's like super misogynistic.
• 12:40
  Speaker 3: Okay, funny because it's true.
• 12:43
  Speaker 2: And I think his neighbor is Greg Kannear and Greg
• 12:47
  Speaker 2: Kannear is gay. And I don't remember the relationship between
• 12:51
  Speaker 2: him and Helen Hunt. I don't know if they're friends.
• 12:54
  Speaker 2: I don't know the relationships. I don't remember exactly how
• 12:57
  Speaker 2: the dynamics work, but I think Jack Nicholson is in
• 13:01
  Speaker 2: love with Helen Hunt. And the reason I watched it
• 13:04
  Speaker 2: so many times is because the Jack Nicholson character has OCD,
• 13:09
  Speaker 2: but it's depicted in a very like Hollywood way.
• 13:13
  Speaker 3: Like touching the door knob kind of way.
• 13:15
  Speaker 2: Yeah, like flipping on the light switches and things like that.
• 13:19
  Speaker 2: But I did a research project in high school on
• 13:22
  Speaker 2: OCD and I watched the movie as research. I hope
• 13:28
  Speaker 2: that I was like in the movie depicts it in
• 13:31
  Speaker 2: a way that's not necessarily very authentic for most people.
• 13:35
  Speaker 2: I don't know what I said. Who knows it was
• 13:37
  Speaker 2: the early two thousands, but anyway.
• 13:39
  Speaker 3: You can't be held accountable.
• 13:40
  Speaker 2: No point is he hates the dog and he tries
• 13:43
  Speaker 2: to kill it.
• 13:44
  Speaker 3: Basically, well, that's certainly not what I thought, as good
• 13:48
  Speaker 3: as it gets was about, and I will not be
• 13:50
  Speaker 3: watching it.
• 13:51
  Speaker 2: I don't think it's the movie for you anyway.
• 13:53
  Speaker 3: A disappointing movie overall in cinema, right, But okay, so
• 13:58
  Speaker 3: you were watching Titanic that year, We're not watching My
• 14:00
  Speaker 3: Best Friends by okay exactly.
• 14:02
  Speaker 2: And I also want to acknowledge that this is generally
• 14:06
  Speaker 2: a beloved movie. It was at the time. It was
• 14:09
  Speaker 2: well received by critics, it was a huge box office hit. Yeah,
• 14:14
  Speaker 2: people still ride for this movie. I don't want to
• 14:17
  Speaker 2: take that away from anyone.
• 14:18
  Speaker 3: No, you're wrong, but it's okay.
• 14:22
  Speaker 2: I think this is a rancid, little bastard of a movie.
• 14:26
  Speaker 3: I feel like we haven't like mutually ragged on a
• 14:29
  Speaker 3: beloved movie at a while. This is going to be thrilling,
• 14:32
  Speaker 3: and there are things I think that aren't necessarily redeemable
• 14:36
  Speaker 3: about it, but are interesting the various versions you pointed out.
• 14:40
  Speaker 3: A gay character is a character that is explicitly gay.
• 14:44
  Speaker 3: I mean, I still have notes, but same, you know, like.
• 14:47
  Speaker 2: There's some things, but overall, I'm just like kind of
• 14:51
  Speaker 2: tired of being asked to empathize with or root for characters,
• 14:57
  Speaker 2: especially awful men like Michael in this movie, who are horrendous,
• 15:03
  Speaker 2: and I don't want to do it.
• 15:04
  Speaker 3: Yeah, that's the thing, is like Jewels, I don't know,
• 15:06
  Speaker 3: like regardless of gender. I think it's the interesting gender
• 15:10
  Speaker 3: point is that we are rarely asked in the space
• 15:14
  Speaker 3: of any movie to this day to root for a
• 15:19
  Speaker 3: lead who is a woman and also is clearly in
• 15:22
  Speaker 3: the wrong and is being conniving and evil, especially in
• 15:25
  Speaker 3: this genre. Like I get it, that's interesting. Jewls never
• 15:29
  Speaker 3: won me over it, Like there was no I don't
• 15:32
  Speaker 3: know if it's like nineteen ninety seven there were people
• 15:34
  Speaker 3: who were rooting for her anyways, or if they were
• 15:37
  Speaker 3: just like it's interesting to watch, And I know that
• 15:39
  Speaker 3: there was like some cultural discourse over like people being
• 15:43
  Speaker 3: overly critical. We can talk about that in the production
• 15:46
  Speaker 3: area where they were like, if my daughter did this,
• 15:48
  Speaker 3: I would kick her out of my house. And you're like,
• 15:50
  Speaker 3: all right, relax, but yeah, being asked to root for
• 15:54
  Speaker 3: two horrible people in a romantic comedy in a love
• 15:58
  Speaker 3: triangle means the only character I like ends up with
• 16:01
  Speaker 3: someone horrible, and that is a non starter for me.
• 16:07
  Speaker 3: That's not why I come to this genre. I would
• 16:09
  Speaker 3: watch like an erotic thriller if I wanted to watch
• 16:12
  Speaker 3: a likable character get completely fucked over.
• 16:15
  Speaker 2: Well, I was gonna say, it's interesting that we're covering
• 16:17
  Speaker 2: this movie right after His Girl Friday, because they are
• 16:21
  Speaker 2: both rom coms that involve a love triangle, with one
• 16:26
  Speaker 2: character trying to you know, win back or steal their
• 16:30
  Speaker 2: ex lover from their current fiance. It's true, but I
• 16:34
  Speaker 2: think my best Friend's wedding is like almost less progressive
• 16:38
  Speaker 2: than His Friday, which is a movie that came out
• 16:40
  Speaker 2: nearly sixty years earlier.
• 16:42
  Speaker 3: I agree, I agree. I mean, you can listen to
• 16:44
  Speaker 3: our His Girl Friday episode. I just everything about that
• 16:47
  Speaker 3: movie just works for me better. It's at least in
• 16:50
  Speaker 3: part of performance thing because Dermnt mulroney, He's no Carrie Grant. Unfortunately,
• 16:55
  Speaker 3: I just yeah, if Julia Roberts can't win me over, like,
• 16:59
  Speaker 3: we've got a album at the base level of the movie.
• 17:02
  Speaker 3: You know so well, I guess let's talk. I feel
• 17:06
  Speaker 3: like people are but everyone's blood is boiling. They're like,
• 17:09
  Speaker 3: they don't get it. They don't understand the subversive nature
• 17:12
  Speaker 3: of nineteen ninety seven.
• 17:13
  Speaker 2: And maybe you're right, maybe you're right, who knows. Let's
• 17:17
  Speaker 2: take a quick break while we all mulleed over, shall we?
• 17:31
  Speaker 3: And we're back and we're freaking back. Wow.
• 17:34
  Speaker 2: Wow, it feels so good to be back. No, yes,
• 17:40
  Speaker 2: here is the freaking recap. Oh, okay, my best friend's wedding.
• 17:44
  Speaker 2: All right, let's hear it. What do you got? We
• 17:46
  Speaker 2: meet Julianne Potter. She's played by Julia Roberts.
• 17:50
  Speaker 3: Doing one of my favorite things, which is having a
• 17:53
  Speaker 3: name so close to the actor so that they don't
• 17:55
  Speaker 3: get confused or scared.
• 17:59
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's like, I will only play characters with my name,
• 18:02
  Speaker 2: but maybe plus a few extra letters.
• 18:04
  Speaker 3: I know. I'm like, have some faith in Julia Roberts.
• 18:07
  Speaker 3: She can remember a second name, but they weren't ready.
• 18:10
  Speaker 2: No. She is a restaurant critic. Basically, she's the critic
• 18:14
  Speaker 2: from Ratatui.
• 18:16
  Speaker 3: I wrote that too. I was like, it's like if
• 18:19
  Speaker 3: the Ratatue critic was obsessed with my dad. Like, it's
• 18:23
  Speaker 3: such a weird movie for me.
• 18:26
  Speaker 2: She's in New York City, ever heard of it? And
• 18:29
  Speaker 2: she gets a phone call from her alleged best friend,
• 18:34
  Speaker 2: Michael O'Neill, who needs to talk to her urgently, and
• 18:39
  Speaker 2: she is at dinner with her friend.
• 18:43
  Speaker 3: George, her actual best friend, her.
• 18:45
  Speaker 2: Actual best friend played by Rupert Everett of Shrek Too Fame, Yes,
• 18:50
  Speaker 2: and Julianne tells him about how she and Michael had
• 18:56
  Speaker 2: this like hot month of romance back in college, although
• 19:00
  Speaker 2: she broke it off, but they stayed best friends and
• 19:04
  Speaker 2: they swore an oath that by the time they were
• 19:07
  Speaker 2: both twenty eight.
• 19:09
  Speaker 3: And then you're just like, oof.
• 19:12
  Speaker 2: If they hadn't yet gotten married to other people, that
• 19:15
  Speaker 2: they would get married to each other, and you're like,
• 19:18
  Speaker 2: brutal twenty eight you.
• 19:20
  Speaker 3: Guys, you guys, even in nineteen ninety seven. It's a
• 19:24
  Speaker 3: bummer that feels, yeah, but again one of the subversive
• 19:29
  Speaker 3: things that like it maybe speaks to how binary gender
• 19:34
  Speaker 3: swaps of movie tropes rarely ends up creating anything progressive really,
• 19:41
  Speaker 3: because there's a lot of lines that Julia Robert says
• 19:43
  Speaker 3: that you would normally hear out of. I kept thinking.
• 19:45
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, she's like doing Freddie Prince Junior
• 19:49
  Speaker 3: and she's all that kind of line reads where it's like,
• 19:52
  Speaker 3: there's not a bet, but there is like these series
• 19:54
  Speaker 3: of deceptions that she is driving. At every single point,
• 19:57
  Speaker 3: she lies every word out of her mouth lie, So
• 20:01
  Speaker 3: she is the decepteur. Yeah, that doesn't make it. I
• 20:05
  Speaker 3: don't know. I just didn't. It didn't win me over,
• 20:08
  Speaker 3: but it is interesting, which is what we say about
• 20:11
  Speaker 3: movies that we don't like.
• 20:14
  Speaker 2: Uh huh.
• 20:15
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 20:15
  Speaker 2: Anyway, So she tells this to George and he's like, well,
• 20:19
  Speaker 2: what if Michael is calling you because you're both about
• 20:22
  Speaker 2: to be twenty eight and he wants to marry you.
• 20:26
  Speaker 2: And she's like, oh my god. So she calls him
• 20:30
  Speaker 2: back and she's like, te he remember that night that
• 20:34
  Speaker 2: we made the oath about getting married to each other.
• 20:36
  Speaker 2: And he's like, yeah, but I'm calling to tell you
• 20:39
  Speaker 2: that I met someone and she and I are getting
• 20:42
  Speaker 2: married this Sunday, four days away.
• 20:45
  Speaker 3: This movie is not shy to introduce a plaque contrivance.
• 20:49
  Speaker 3: That much is for sure, and it doesn't need to
• 20:52
  Speaker 3: make any logical sense with like what is happening or
• 20:58
  Speaker 3: what we're told. People's relationships are something that really bugs
• 21:01
  Speaker 3: me about this movie and a reason that his girl
• 21:03
  Speaker 3: Friday works for me in spite of very similar plot
• 21:06
  Speaker 3: dynamics where two out of three people are evil and
• 21:09
  Speaker 3: the nice person does get fucked over, but you understand
• 21:13
  Speaker 3: that the two characters who are evil have this like
• 21:17
  Speaker 3: unbelievable chemistry, Like so even when they suck, it is
• 21:22
  Speaker 3: at very least interesting to watch. But I feel like
• 21:24
  Speaker 3: we are only ever told that they're best friends, were
• 21:27
  Speaker 3: never shown why they're best friends, and so it's just
• 21:31
  Speaker 3: like impossible, or at least it was like impossible for
• 21:34
  Speaker 3: me on every viewing of this movie to get on
• 21:35
  Speaker 3: board with the fact that they're actually best friends because
• 21:37
  Speaker 3: they just feel so clearly not. And also he's trying
• 21:41
  Speaker 3: to cheat on his fiance the whole movie, the whole movie,
• 21:44
  Speaker 3: and they're like, Julia Roberts was really fucking You're like,
• 21:47
  Speaker 3: they're both fucked up. They should have ended up together.
• 21:51
  Speaker 2: They deserve each other. I kept getting hung up on
• 21:55
  Speaker 2: the logistics of the wedding stuff, because again, it's like
• 21:58
  Speaker 2: if you have a wedding generally unless you're eloping, which fine,
• 22:03
  Speaker 2: sounds like a great idea.
• 22:04
  Speaker 3: This is a billion dollar wedding. Literally, this is like
• 22:08
  Speaker 3: a rich guy's wedding, right.
• 22:10
  Speaker 2: So, Cameron Diaz's family, her character's family, are billionaires.
• 22:14
  Speaker 3: They own the Chicago White Sox, White Sox Wild.
• 22:19
  Speaker 2: Plus, like a media empire or something like that.
• 22:21
  Speaker 3: They own sport magazine, do they not?
• 22:26
  Speaker 2: Probably so she doesn't know about the wedding of her
• 22:30
  Speaker 2: again alleged best friend until four days until it's about
• 22:33
  Speaker 2: to happen. Would they have not planned this wedding many
• 22:37
  Speaker 2: many months in advance, if not years, spent all the money.
• 22:43
  Speaker 2: It would be a very opulent wedding. You would think
• 22:46
  Speaker 2: they're billionaires. Also, billionaires are obviously evil, horrid people, and
• 22:52
  Speaker 2: they don't like to mix class with other Like this
• 22:55
  Speaker 2: guy's a well, that's the fret working class guy, Like
• 22:57
  Speaker 2: they would have like vetted the shit out of him.
• 22:59
  Speaker 2: I don't don't think they would have approved of the
• 23:02
  Speaker 2: Michael character.
• 23:03
  Speaker 3: I'm just like see I originally because I forgot the
• 23:07
  Speaker 3: like minutia of this movie, but I thought like he
• 23:09
  Speaker 3: was just inviting her really late because he wasn't sure
• 23:12
  Speaker 3: if he wanted her there because he secretly loved her,
• 23:16
  Speaker 3: so I thought it was like a last minute invite.
• 23:17
  Speaker 3: You're like, well, that's kind of interesting. That could be
• 23:19
  Speaker 3: the source of conflict between the two of them. Why
• 23:21
  Speaker 3: didn't you invite me sooner? But then, yeah, what less
• 23:24
  Speaker 3: than forty eight hours before the wedding, Cameron Diaz has
• 23:29
  Speaker 3: not yet chosen a maid of honor, Like this is
• 23:33
  Speaker 3: and and you know obviously goes out and saying you
• 23:36
  Speaker 3: don't need a maid of honor. But this is a
• 23:38
  Speaker 3: very conventional wedding story. We're being given this character would
• 23:42
  Speaker 3: have a maid of honor, and the reason that we're
• 23:44
  Speaker 3: given she doesn't have one makes no sense.
• 23:48
  Speaker 2: She's like, I have no friend, she said, her maid
• 23:49
  Speaker 2: of honor fractured her pelvis. Yeah, she had one and
• 23:53
  Speaker 2: then she got an injury.
• 23:55
  Speaker 3: She had one friend she had and then her only
• 23:58
  Speaker 3: friend broke her pelvis, which just the way that Cameron
• 24:02
  Speaker 3: Diaz's character was written was so all over the place,
• 24:06
  Speaker 3: because it was like, why does this twenty year old
• 24:10
  Speaker 3: college student have not a friend to her name? If
• 24:13
  Speaker 3: we are told as the movie moves on, that she's
• 24:16
  Speaker 3: a very lovable person, Like, why wouldn't she have friends?
• 24:20
  Speaker 3: Of course she'd have friends if she's as nice as
• 24:21
  Speaker 3: we understand she is by the end of the movie.
• 24:24
  Speaker 3: It makes no sense rich people buy friends. She could
• 24:28
  Speaker 3: have bought am made of honor. It just doesn't mean literally, Yeah,
• 24:31
  Speaker 3: I don't get it, Like why and again, you're totally
• 24:33
  Speaker 3: I didn't even think of that, but like, yeah, how
• 24:36
  Speaker 3: restrictive you know, like this is like this rich family's
• 24:40
  Speaker 3: royal wedding or whatever.
• 24:42
  Speaker 2: Hm.
• 24:42
  Speaker 3: They wouldn't let her get away with no maid of
• 24:44
  Speaker 3: honor till two days before.
• 24:46
  Speaker 2: They wouldn't have even let her marry this.
• 24:49
  Speaker 3: Guy, Like they shouldn't.
• 24:50
  Speaker 2: You know it?
• 24:51
  Speaker 3: Now I'm on the side. This is the other thing
• 24:53
  Speaker 3: that was getting frustrated, Like I keep siding with the billionaires,
• 24:56
  Speaker 3: where I was like, leave this sweet family alone.
• 24:59
  Speaker 2: Because is they're not written to be billionaires.
• 25:02
  Speaker 3: No, they're written to be like middle class from the Midwest.
• 25:05
  Speaker 2: Right, They're not succession characters.
• 25:07
  Speaker 3: Yeah.
• 25:08
  Speaker 2: I don't think the writer of the movie like understood
• 25:12
  Speaker 2: what billionaires are like anyway.
• 25:14
  Speaker 3: Well, as we'll talk about, there were so many changes
• 25:16
  Speaker 3: made in this movie that I feel like stuff from
• 25:18
  Speaker 3: past drafts were just not updated to reflect with the
• 25:21
  Speaker 3: characters were supposed to be that or they're like rich
• 25:25
  Speaker 3: people they don't have a thought in their heads, which
• 25:28
  Speaker 3: can be very true. Yeah, but in this way, it
• 25:31
  Speaker 3: was like it maybe feel deeply sad for Kimmy the
• 25:34
  Speaker 3: way that like we're told, like, here is this woman
• 25:38
  Speaker 3: who it seems like is a very sweet person. And
• 25:42
  Speaker 3: then also in the like conventional power broker sense, has
• 25:46
  Speaker 3: everything going for her but has no friends. She's surrounded
• 25:51
  Speaker 3: by this wealthy family, none of whom have any interest
• 25:55
  Speaker 3: or insight into her interior life. Because as this whole
• 25:59
  Speaker 3: emotional and he is like this pretty like fucked up
• 26:02
  Speaker 3: thing is happening to Kimmy, no one around her seems
• 26:06
  Speaker 3: to notice or care. And this is her beloved family.
• 26:10
  Speaker 2: Care that her fiance is forcing her to drop out
• 26:13
  Speaker 2: of college and follow him around the country.
• 26:17
  Speaker 3: That's something that like His Girl Friday, is more progressive
• 26:20
  Speaker 3: than that. Like it. You could listen to the episode,
• 26:23
  Speaker 3: but there was never a point where it's like the
• 26:25
  Speaker 3: idea that the lead woman and his girl his Girl Friday,
• 26:29
  Speaker 3: if you will Hildy Hildy, Yes, that Hildy was going
• 26:33
  Speaker 3: to leave her profession. The movie feels that's not right.
• 26:37
  Speaker 3: And by the end of the movie, you know whatever,
• 26:39
  Speaker 3: through some blah blah blah blah. Listen to the episode,
• 26:42
  Speaker 3: but she is returning to her career and she seems
• 26:46
  Speaker 3: happy with that. But that like that detail that Kimmy
• 26:49
  Speaker 3: is being forced to drop out of school because she's
• 26:52
  Speaker 3: twenty years old, and we are told she doesn't want to.
• 26:57
  Speaker 2: She doesn't want to at all.
• 26:59
  Speaker 3: And at the end we have no reason to believe
• 27:01
  Speaker 3: because Michael the character changes not a lick, not at all.
• 27:05
  Speaker 3: At least Julia. This is like, at least Jules. She
• 27:08
  Speaker 3: is despicable, she's horrible, she does only horrible things, but
• 27:11
  Speaker 3: at least she grows a little by the end, and
• 27:14
  Speaker 3: she has to apologizes. She admits false things that male
• 27:17
  Speaker 3: characters in her position almost never do. Whether you like
• 27:20
  Speaker 3: her or hater, I don't really like the character, but
• 27:22
  Speaker 3: at least she does grow By the end of the movie.
• 27:24
  Speaker 3: Michael stagnant. He's still gonna make his twenty year old
• 27:28
  Speaker 3: wife drop out of college, and it's just like I
• 27:30
  Speaker 3: hate this guy. Okay, sorry, we're at the beginning of
• 27:33
  Speaker 3: the recap.
• 27:34
  Speaker 2: Yeah, all right, So after this phone call with Michael
• 27:39
  Speaker 2: where he tells her that he's met someone and is
• 27:42
  Speaker 2: getting married. This makes julian realize that she's in love
• 27:47
  Speaker 2: with Michael, and now she has four days to break
• 27:50
  Speaker 2: up his wedding so that he will hopefully choose.
• 27:54
  Speaker 3: Her stakes Steaks, Steaks.
• 27:57
  Speaker 2: Then we meet Michael. This is dormit.
• 28:02
  Speaker 3: He's crying again. Dermott our number one fan is crying.
• 28:06
  Speaker 2: Again, Dermit mulroney. And we meet his fiance, Kimmy played
• 28:14
  Speaker 2: by Cameron Diaz, also of Shrek fame, who, upon meeting Julianne,
• 28:21
  Speaker 2: asks her to be Kimmy's maid of honor because of
• 28:25
  Speaker 2: the thing we just discussed of her original made of
• 28:28
  Speaker 2: honor being injured. And so they go to a dress
• 28:32
  Speaker 2: fitting together and then Michael walks in on Julianne in
• 28:38
  Speaker 2: her bra and underwear and he's like, oh wooga, hubba hubba.
• 28:43
  Speaker 3: And then you're just like I no matter what happens,
• 28:46
  Speaker 3: I will never like this character. Nothing will make me
• 28:51
  Speaker 3: like this character.
• 28:52
  Speaker 2: Nothing. She's visibly uncomfortable. He barges in, he doesn't apologize,
• 28:56
  Speaker 2: he stays, and then he hits on her. Meanwhile, well,
• 29:00
  Speaker 2: his wife in the future. It's like in the next room,
• 29:04
  Speaker 2: but because he expresses this like hint of attraction toward Julianne,
• 29:09
  Speaker 2: She's like, oh, okay, I got this. I can pull
• 29:12
  Speaker 2: this off. So Julianne decides to try to sabotage Kimmy
• 29:17
  Speaker 2: and Michael's relationship. Julianne tells him that she's super comfortable
• 29:25
  Speaker 2: showing affection now. She reminisces with Michael in front of
• 29:31
  Speaker 2: Kimmy to make her feel jealous and excluded. She takes
• 29:36
  Speaker 2: the couple to a karaoke bar to humiliate Kimmy because
• 29:40
  Speaker 2: she knows that Kimmy's a horrible singer. But her plan
• 29:43
  Speaker 2: doesn't work because everyone finds her horrible singing to be endearing.
• 29:49
  Speaker 2: Then something with Michael's job happens, and it's kind of confusing,
• 29:53
  Speaker 2: but as we said, he's a sports writer. And Julianne
• 29:58
  Speaker 2: orchestrates this plan and to convince Kimmy to get her
• 30:03
  Speaker 2: dad to offer Michael a job at his billionaire company,
• 30:09
  Speaker 2: which Julianne knows that Michael will be insulted by and
• 30:14
  Speaker 2: he'll think.
• 30:14
  Speaker 3: That, well, yeah, because he's her best friend, which we're
• 30:17
  Speaker 3: told every ten minutes or so to justify the whole
• 30:22
  Speaker 3: chasm of like no chemistry between these two actors.
• 30:27
  Speaker 2: Right, right, So he proceeds to act like the biggest
• 30:34
  Speaker 2: asshole in this scene, which I want to unpack a
• 30:37
  Speaker 2: little bit later, but basically, he's screaming at Kimmy, being like, oh,
• 30:42
  Speaker 2: you think I'm not good enough? Blah blah blah.
• 30:45
  Speaker 3: This scene is awful, and I feel like it's made
• 30:48
  Speaker 3: out to be maybe a class issue, but it's not
• 30:51
  Speaker 3: a class issue. He's being terrible to her. He's berating her.
• 30:56
  Speaker 3: He's telling her my ambitions are martin important than yours
• 31:01
  Speaker 3: and if you can't accept that, we can't get married,
• 31:04
  Speaker 3: and like you're just like this guy needs to be
• 31:07
  Speaker 3: put through a human sized shredder, and like I cannot
• 31:10
  Speaker 3: believe that he and we can talk about because it's
• 31:14
  Speaker 3: not that women did not have hands on this script,
• 31:18
  Speaker 3: as we'll get to, but the fact that this movie
• 31:21
  Speaker 3: was like written and driven by men is so obvious
• 31:24
  Speaker 3: because it's like, imagine a woman doing anything that Michael
• 31:29
  Speaker 3: does throughout this movie, they would be eviscerated. Like he
• 31:33
  Speaker 3: is worse than Julianne. But there is like nothing in
• 31:36
  Speaker 3: nineteen ninety seven that I could find that was critical
• 31:38
  Speaker 3: of him. It was all critical of Julianne, who is bad,
• 31:41
  Speaker 3: but it's the oh god, he's so terrible in that scene.
• 31:44
  Speaker 3: I found it very upsetting because and also like Kimmi
• 31:48
  Speaker 3: is like crying, falling Julianne. This asshole is like sitting
• 31:52
  Speaker 3: to the side like ha ha ha, it's working, and
• 31:54
  Speaker 3: you're like, I hate you fucking clowns. You guys are clowns. Ah.
• 31:58
  Speaker 2: He's being emotionally andverbally abusive to Kimmy.
• 32:02
  Speaker 3: In public too. You're like, oh my god.
• 32:05
  Speaker 2: It's really upsetting.
• 32:07
  Speaker 3: I hate this character.
• 32:08
  Speaker 2: But this plan of Julian's also ends up backfiring because
• 32:12
  Speaker 2: Kimmy apologizes and groovels and said, you're right, I was
• 32:16
  Speaker 2: so wrong. We'll do things your way.
• 32:19
  Speaker 3: Horrible to watch because you're just like I think that
• 32:21
  Speaker 3: that is a combination of poor writing and like, I
• 32:25
  Speaker 3: don't think this is how it was intended, but like,
• 32:28
  Speaker 3: as someone that young in an emotionally abusive relationship like
• 32:34
  Speaker 3: that can happen, and it's presented in this very lighthearted
• 32:37
  Speaker 3: like I don't know, I just was very upset by
• 32:40
  Speaker 3: their relationship dynamic, like consistently.
• 32:43
  Speaker 2: Yeah, And the scene ends with like, oh no, Julian's
• 32:47
  Speaker 2: plan was thwarted because Michael and Kimmy kiss and make
• 32:52
  Speaker 2: up and everything seems fine again.
• 32:54
  Speaker 3: Like I hope the bean falls on her. I hope
• 32:56
  Speaker 3: the Chicago Bean, which I don't even know if it existed,
• 32:59
  Speaker 3: then I wish it just uprooted and rolled over on
• 33:03
  Speaker 3: her and crushed her and Michael too. What if they
• 33:07
  Speaker 3: got killed by the bean and that was the end?
• 33:09
  Speaker 2: God well, because like everything's fine between Michael and Kimmy.
• 33:16
  Speaker 2: What that actually means is that Michael will keep the
• 33:19
  Speaker 2: job that he has but still force Kimmy to drop
• 33:23
  Speaker 2: out of school.
• 33:24
  Speaker 3: Kimmy is still dropping out of school. Kimmy is still
• 33:26
  Speaker 3: being like I think, forced to move away from her
• 33:29
  Speaker 3: family something like that.
• 33:31
  Speaker 2: It reminded me of the first Twilight movie where Bella
• 33:35
  Speaker 2: the reason she moves to Forks, Washington is because her
• 33:39
  Speaker 2: mom gets that baseball player boyfriend and so he's always
• 33:43
  Speaker 2: going to be on the road and her mom wasn't
• 33:46
  Speaker 2: going to be around because she was going to travel
• 33:47
  Speaker 2: with him. So Bella was like, I have to go
• 33:50
  Speaker 2: meet some vampires.
• 33:52
  Speaker 3: I don't know if we had the brain cells to
• 33:54
  Speaker 3: talk about it at the time, but it's like if
• 33:56
  Speaker 3: Bella's mom was in that secure of a relationship, like
• 33:59
  Speaker 3: I would have waited for my to graduate high school.
• 34:01
  Speaker 3: Come on, it's not an emergency, it's not a fire,
• 34:06
  Speaker 3: it's a minor league baseball boyfriend. Grow up anyways, grow up?
• 34:11
  Speaker 2: Okay. Then Julian's friend George shows up to help Julian,
• 34:16
  Speaker 2: and he's like, just tell Michael the truth, tell him
• 34:19
  Speaker 2: that you love him, and she's about to do that,
• 34:22
  Speaker 2: but then she sees an opportunity to try to make
• 34:25
  Speaker 2: Michael jealous by pretending to be engaged to George.
• 34:29
  Speaker 3: And now we have a classic dated contrivance where we're
• 34:34
  Speaker 3: laughing because he's gay.
• 34:36
  Speaker 2: He's gay, right, And she goes along with this lie
• 34:42
  Speaker 2: for a while, including during a very long scene of
• 34:46
  Speaker 2: a rehearsal lunch where everyone is singing. I say a
• 34:49
  Speaker 2: little prayer by Deanna d'An warwick.
• 34:52
  Speaker 3: Good for dann Warwick. I hope she got a fat
• 34:54
  Speaker 3: check for this movie. But like I mean, it has
• 34:57
  Speaker 3: no bearing on I understand why, Like it was like
• 35:00
  Speaker 3: funny and jarring at the time. As someone with no
• 35:03
  Speaker 3: nostalgia for this movie, I think that seems annoying and weird.
• 35:06
  Speaker 3: So long, so this movie is written by Ronald Bass, right,
• 35:09
  Speaker 3: very very famous writer, has won a lot of awards
• 35:13
  Speaker 3: and written a lot of influential movies, some of which
• 35:15
  Speaker 3: we've covered, some of which we probably will have to
• 35:17
  Speaker 3: at some point. I'm talking Rainman, Sleeping with the Enemy,
• 35:21
  Speaker 3: The Joy Luck Club, Waiting to Exhale, Dangerous Minds, My
• 35:24
  Speaker 3: best Friend's Weddings, Stepmoms, How Stella got her groove back,
• 35:28
  Speaker 3: like very influential writer who and the reason I say
• 35:33
  Speaker 3: that there were women's hands on this where he famously
• 35:35
  Speaker 3: had a small writer's room of younger women who would
• 35:39
  Speaker 3: work with him, who were called the Ronettes and the Ronettes,
• 35:45
  Speaker 3: which is like a whatever old timey motown joke. But anyways,
• 35:50
  Speaker 3: Ronald Bass, who was old of this, but he wrote
• 35:53
  Speaker 3: this movie in his fifties. The reason I think that
• 35:56
  Speaker 3: he was in some ways able to write contemporary is
• 36:00
  Speaker 3: because he had young writers collaborating with him. I don't
• 36:06
  Speaker 3: know what the full deal with the Ronettes is. I
• 36:08
  Speaker 3: know that we've brought it up before. I know that
• 36:11
  Speaker 3: I've like talked about it on the show before. I
• 36:12
  Speaker 3: don't remember what movie we would have been it might
• 36:15
  Speaker 3: have been when Stella got her groove back, that the
• 36:18
  Speaker 3: concept of the Ronettes first came up. But anyways, this
• 36:23
  Speaker 3: scene was a huge point of contention for the director PJ.
• 36:28
  Speaker 3: Hogan and Ronald Bass and the Ronettes. Ronald Bass and
• 36:34
  Speaker 3: the Raetts were like, why do you want to add
• 36:36
  Speaker 3: a full musical number in the middle of a scene?
• 36:39
  Speaker 3: And PJ. Hogan was like, trust me, it'll be awesome.
• 36:43
  Speaker 3: And ultimately, I mean, I guess audiences loved that scene,
• 36:47
  Speaker 3: but I think Ronald Bass and the raw Nets were correct.
• 36:51
  Speaker 3: I think I thought it was annoying. But I'm a
• 36:53
  Speaker 3: hater for this week. If I was enjoying this movie
• 36:56
  Speaker 3: and then that happened, maybe I would like it.
• 36:57
  Speaker 2: Maybe, But you're telling me that a family of billionaires
• 37:03
  Speaker 2: goes to a wedding rehearsal lunch at some red lobster
• 37:08
  Speaker 2: ass seafood restaurant, right, Burry the Kudahs.
• 37:12
  Speaker 3: No, Well, the thing is like speaks to how little
• 37:15
  Speaker 3: we know about Kimmy. Because if I'm being generous, if
• 37:18
  Speaker 3: they're a family that's like new money, right, and.
• 37:21
  Speaker 2: Like new money like Molly Brown.
• 37:24
  Speaker 3: Molly Brown style, Mollie would go to a red lobster
• 37:26
  Speaker 3: in spite of being very wealthy, So like, maybe they're
• 37:29
  Speaker 3: a family that came from humble beginnings and then got
• 37:32
  Speaker 3: a lot of money, but we never have enough insight
• 37:35
  Speaker 3: into the family to understand is this like old money
• 37:38
  Speaker 3: generational wealth? Like could this make sense? But I just
• 37:41
  Speaker 3: found it weird for how many of these characters there are, Yeah,
• 37:45
  Speaker 3: Kimmy's I mean not like I was like, I need
• 37:47
  Speaker 3: to know Kimmy's family better, but even like a character
• 37:50
  Speaker 3: who isn't Kimmy that could better characterize this family vibe
• 37:57
  Speaker 3: wise would be really helpful because I just like can't tell.
• 38:01
  Speaker 3: I can't tell if like Kimmy is willing to go
• 38:04
  Speaker 3: into this marriage. I mean, I do believe that she
• 38:06
  Speaker 3: really loves Michael, but it's such an unhealthy relationship, and like,
• 38:11
  Speaker 3: I just don't understand why she is the way she is,
• 38:14
  Speaker 3: unless it's just like she seems pretty emotionally neglected by
• 38:18
  Speaker 3: her family. But we're also supposed to be like they're
• 38:22
  Speaker 3: so funny because they're written like cartoon characters, especially like
• 38:25
  Speaker 3: the weird Cousins or whatever idea What was going on there? Anyways,
• 38:30
  Speaker 3: Sorry that scene it's annoying.
• 38:33
  Speaker 2: So frustrating. Okay, So then George leaves and Julianne tells
• 38:39
  Speaker 2: Michael that she and George are not actually engaged, that
• 38:44
  Speaker 2: she had broken it off with George a while ago,
• 38:48
  Speaker 2: and so, you know, another lie. But Michael is like, well,
• 38:51
  Speaker 2: that's good because I actually got really jealous when I
• 38:54
  Speaker 2: thought you were going to marry George. And she's like, okay,
• 38:57
  Speaker 2: maybe this is working. Then Julianne and Michael are on
• 39:01
  Speaker 2: a boat together. The vibe is very romantic. They're slow dancing,
• 39:05
  Speaker 2: They're talking about their feelings and their past relationship. She
• 39:10
  Speaker 2: almost tells him that she loves him, but does not.
• 39:14
  Speaker 2: Then the thing with Michael's job comes up again, because
• 39:18
  Speaker 2: this obstacle has to happen twice for.
• 39:21
  Speaker 3: Some reason I don't know where.
• 39:25
  Speaker 2: Julianne sneaks into the office of Kimmy's dad, Walter and
• 39:30
  Speaker 2: writes an email to Michael's current boss from Walter at
• 39:34
  Speaker 2: Sport Magazine at Sport Magazine, asking him to basically fire
• 39:40
  Speaker 2: Michael so that he'll accept a job at Walter's company.
• 39:44
  Speaker 2: But then julian decides against sending this email, but the
• 39:48
  Speaker 2: email accidentally gets sent anyway.
• 39:51
  Speaker 3: This fucking plot as email, like it's so silly where
• 39:57
  Speaker 3: she I don't know how hard it was to x
• 39:59
  Speaker 3: out a window in or like to not save the
• 40:03
  Speaker 3: draft or like whatever. It's it's a very whatever. It's
• 40:07
  Speaker 3: very plotty, and I know that this movie is like
• 40:09
  Speaker 3: operating on farce logic, and so like when we put
• 40:12
  Speaker 3: it under a super close microscope, like it's supposed to
• 40:15
  Speaker 3: be a farce, but it's not working as a farce.
• 40:17
  Speaker 3: So all of these plot logic things stick out like
• 40:19
  Speaker 3: a store thumb. Why does the email stay open to
• 40:22
  Speaker 3: sport magazine? Come on?
• 40:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well because she saves it for later. And then
• 40:27
  Speaker 2: Walter is, like, I had some email drafts I had saved, Hey, assistant,
• 40:32
  Speaker 2: send them all out, and that's how it gets sent.
• 40:35
  Speaker 2: But like I just have to move on, Okay. Yeah,
• 40:38
  Speaker 2: Michael finds out about this email that he doesn't realize
• 40:44
  Speaker 2: Julianne had sent. He thinks it's coming from his future
• 40:48
  Speaker 2: father in law, and he thinks it was Kimmy's doing that,
• 40:52
  Speaker 2: like she put her dad up to this, and he
• 40:54
  Speaker 2: gets so furious that he calls the wedding off. But
• 40:59
  Speaker 2: nobody tells Kimmy's family that the wedding is off. So
• 41:03
  Speaker 2: Michael goes to the wedding brunch. I guess to handle
• 41:07
  Speaker 2: things face to face with Kimmy, although he decides he
• 41:11
  Speaker 2: will marry Kimmy after all, after a series of like, hey, Julianne,
• 41:17
  Speaker 2: go be my messenger and like you go talk to
• 41:20
  Speaker 2: my future wife, and then like she's just lying back
• 41:23
  Speaker 2: and forth and I'm like, you're adults. Well Kimmy barely is.
• 41:27
  Speaker 3: But like, yeah, Kimmy, I would say, is she is
• 41:31
  Speaker 3: an adult. I don't want to like treat her like
• 41:33
  Speaker 3: her She.
• 41:33
  Speaker 2: Is an adult, but she's twenty, like her brain is
• 41:36
  Speaker 2: still developing.
• 41:37
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Julia Rowerson, Dermott, mulroney. They don't have any such excuse.
• 41:41
  Speaker 3: They're just grown people fucking around with a college student's
• 41:49
  Speaker 3: entire life and for what.
• 41:52
  Speaker 2: For what? Anyway, it's decided that the wedding is back on.
• 41:57
  Speaker 2: But then Julianne finally worked up the courage to tell
• 42:01
  Speaker 2: Michael that she loves him, and then she surprised kisses him,
• 42:05
  Speaker 2: which Kimmy sees, so she runs off.
• 42:09
  Speaker 3: Right, And it's the rare surprise kiss where the surprise
• 42:12
  Speaker 3: element of it is of consequence, which I thought was interesting.
• 42:15
  Speaker 2: Right, Yeah, true, So now Michael is chasing Kimmy through Chicago.
• 42:22
  Speaker 2: Julianne is chasing Michael. Julianne catches up with Michael at
• 42:26
  Speaker 2: the train station. Kimmy is nowhere to be found, and
• 42:31
  Speaker 2: Julianne confesses to writing that email, and so he's furious
• 42:36
  Speaker 2: and he's like your pus and pond scum and blah
• 42:39
  Speaker 2: blah blah.
• 42:39
  Speaker 3: But the way he's furious is still like flirtatious, where
• 42:43
  Speaker 3: he's like you're piece Like it feels like a kink discussion,
• 42:47
  Speaker 3: where it's like you're a piece of shit, You're a
• 42:50
  Speaker 3: fucking scum. You're just like, what is going on with you? Guys?
• 42:56
  Speaker 3: Just get on a train and go to hell. Like
• 42:59
  Speaker 3: drive take the next Amtrak to the core of the earth.
• 43:02
  Speaker 3: You fucking losers.
• 43:04
  Speaker 2: I hate them U. Anyway, Julianne realizes that she lost
• 43:12
  Speaker 2: right and that she needs to set things right, so
• 43:14
  Speaker 2: she helps Michael to find Kimmy and they bring her
• 43:19
  Speaker 2: back to the wedding place, and the wedding happens. Michael
• 43:24
  Speaker 2: marries Kimmy, and then Julianne is at the reception. She's like, Wow,
• 43:29
  Speaker 2: I did the right thing, even though for the past
• 43:31
  Speaker 2: ninety minutes I did everything wrong. And then she gets
• 43:34
  Speaker 2: a phone call from George who surprise is there at
• 43:38
  Speaker 2: the wedding, and then they dance and that's the end
• 43:41
  Speaker 2: of the movie. So let's take another quick break and
• 43:44
  Speaker 2: we'll come back to discuss.
• 43:56
  Speaker 3: And we're back. Yeah, oh gosh, where to begin. Well,
• 44:03
  Speaker 3: if it's okay, let's begin at the beginning, the beginning
• 44:06
  Speaker 3: of this movie. Moment one. I don't like it. The
• 44:10
  Speaker 3: beginning of the movie makes no sense to me. It is,
• 44:13
  Speaker 3: you know, it is like a ViBe's kind of introduction.
• 44:16
  Speaker 3: But it's just like brides with bridesmaids singing, wishing and
• 44:21
  Speaker 3: hope and there's no it's nothing. It's about nothing, and
• 44:25
  Speaker 3: it's presenting this very I mean, I guess you could
• 44:28
  Speaker 3: say it's presenting this very idyllic idea of like the
• 44:32
  Speaker 3: white American bride, and that is like, sure, the rug
• 44:36
  Speaker 3: pull of this movie is that who we think is
• 44:39
  Speaker 3: our heroine is not going to get that. But like
• 44:43
  Speaker 3: I found that again, I just didn't like it. I
• 44:46
  Speaker 3: didn't think it did anything. But okay, I wanted to
• 44:51
  Speaker 3: offer context for this movie, and I say that with
• 44:57
  Speaker 3: also knowing that I think it's interesting. It doesn't really
• 45:01
  Speaker 3: change my opinion of the movie, but I do think
• 45:03
  Speaker 3: it's interesting. This was published in Vulture. It is an
• 45:07
  Speaker 3: excerpt from a book called From Hollywood with Love by
• 45:12
  Speaker 3: Scott Maslow. I haven't read it, but it is a
• 45:15
  Speaker 3: book about the production and the subversive elements of My
• 45:20
  Speaker 3: best Friend's Wedding. It is interesting because I didn't realize
• 45:24
  Speaker 3: another movie that's been on my to watch list forever
• 45:27
  Speaker 3: is Muriel's Wedding. We've gotten a lot of.
• 45:29
  Speaker 2: Requests for it, oh many.
• 45:31
  Speaker 3: And this movie was directed by the director of Muriel's Wedding,
• 45:35
  Speaker 3: so he's also kind of mister Wedding. And I guess
• 45:40
  Speaker 3: that he got this movie in part because Julia Roberts
• 45:43
  Speaker 3: had really liked Muriel's Wedding. So he's an Australian guy
• 45:48
  Speaker 3: who directs movies about weddings. Something to know. This was
• 45:52
  Speaker 3: a Ronald Bass script. He obviously was already very successful.
• 45:55
  Speaker 3: He'd want oscars. He's written all of these very successful
• 45:58
  Speaker 3: movies with the raw question mark. And there is a
• 46:02
  Speaker 3: passage in the story I think is interesting because it
• 46:04
  Speaker 3: does boil down what, at least on its face, was
• 46:07
  Speaker 3: the versive about this movie at the time. So a
• 46:10
  Speaker 3: quote from the piece it's describing when PJ. Hogan got
• 46:14
  Speaker 3: the script. When Hogan sat down to read the script,
• 46:17
  Speaker 3: he discovered, to his surprise that my best friend's wedding
• 46:19
  Speaker 3: was a closer cousin to Muriel's wedding than he had expected.
• 46:22
  Speaker 3: What really surprised me was that it wasn't really very romantic,
• 46:25
  Speaker 3: he says. In fact, my experience of reading the screenplay
• 46:28
  Speaker 3: was Wow, I'm not sure I like her very much.
• 46:32
  Speaker 3: And usually in romantic comedies, everything the main character does
• 46:35
  Speaker 3: in order to win love and find happiness is totally justified,
• 46:38
  Speaker 3: even if it's kind of awful. What Meg Ryan does
• 46:41
  Speaker 3: to Bill Pullman in Sleepless in Seattle is kind of awful,
• 46:44
  Speaker 3: And as I was reading it, I was thinking, God,
• 46:46
  Speaker 3: it's that damn romantic comedy problem. She's kind of awful.
• 46:50
  Speaker 3: And I got to the end and she didn't get
• 46:52
  Speaker 3: the guy, and I thought, oh my god, that's the point.
• 46:55
  Speaker 3: This takes the form and smashes it on the floor.
• 46:58
  Speaker 3: Most romantic comedies are about how all fair in love
• 47:00
  Speaker 3: and war, which is something I've never really believed in.
• 47:03
  Speaker 3: And this was a screenplay about how all is not
• 47:05
  Speaker 3: fair in love and war. It was a romantic comedy
• 47:08
  Speaker 3: that wasn't very romantic. I think that this is, on
• 47:12
  Speaker 3: its face, basically true, right, Like, yeah, I'd agree, but again,
• 47:17
  Speaker 3: it just feels like every discussion I've seen of those
• 47:22
  Speaker 3: elements of this movie are undercut by a lack of
• 47:27
  Speaker 3: insight into who these characters really are, the tropes that
• 47:32
  Speaker 3: do still appear, and the fact that I think that
• 47:35
  Speaker 3: the male lead of this movie is just like irredeemably horrible,
• 47:39
  Speaker 3: and so I like the fact that he ends. I
• 47:41
  Speaker 3: would rather he end up alone, and like not ideal
• 47:47
  Speaker 3: for Kimmy either way, but I would like a more
• 47:50
  Speaker 3: just outcome to this because I feel like, you know,
• 47:52
  Speaker 3: Juliane ending up alone was perceived by audiences at the
• 47:55
  Speaker 3: time as wow, a sort of unusually just outcome to
• 48:01
  Speaker 3: a romantic, high jinks kind of movie, for sure. And
• 48:05
  Speaker 3: the other thing that I learned about the production from
• 48:07
  Speaker 3: this essay was that they had to reshoot the ending
• 48:10
  Speaker 3: more than once, and that test audiences. Originally there was
• 48:14
  Speaker 3: a lot of pressure put on Ronald Bass to have
• 48:19
  Speaker 3: Julianne end up with someone, so every draft of the
• 48:23
  Speaker 3: movie does end up with her not getting the you know,
• 48:27
  Speaker 3: Dermott mulroney, okay, but the original ending had her meeting
• 48:32
  Speaker 3: oh my gosh, what's the guy from Sex and the
• 48:34
  Speaker 3: City and My Big Fact Creek Wedding, John Corbett. Oh yeah,
• 48:39
  Speaker 3: So in the original ending, John Corbett shows up and
• 48:43
  Speaker 3: she meets John Corbett. She still calls George and she's like, oh,
• 48:46
  Speaker 3: this sucks. I'm lonely, I lost the movie. And he's like,
• 48:50
  Speaker 3: maybe there's someone awesome, Like George doesn't come to the
• 48:53
  Speaker 3: wedding at the end, she just meet the guy named
• 48:56
  Speaker 3: John Corbett. It kind of reminded me of the end
• 48:58
  Speaker 3: of Five Hundred Days of Summer, another annoying.
• 49:01
  Speaker 2: Movie about a villain who is positioned as the protagonist. Yeah.
• 49:07
  Speaker 3: Yes, and at the end of that, you know, he
• 49:08
  Speaker 3: meets a girl named Autumn and you're like, great, now
• 49:10
  Speaker 3: he's gonna ruin were unto her? Like, yeah, So that
• 49:15
  Speaker 3: was the original ending because there was a lot of
• 49:17
  Speaker 3: pressure for producers of like it's Julia Roberts, she has
• 49:20
  Speaker 3: to end up with somebody, which is inherently sexist trope,
• 49:25
  Speaker 3: but audiences. Test audiences hated that ending, which again is
• 49:28
  Speaker 3: kind of complicated, but they were just like in a
• 49:31
  Speaker 3: way that felt like maybe a little sexist as well,
• 49:34
  Speaker 3: where they were like, this woman deserves nothing like, you know,
• 49:39
  Speaker 3: maybe an over correction, but they didn't like the ending.
• 49:42
  Speaker 3: And also in the original ending, there is never a
• 49:46
  Speaker 3: scene where Kimmy stands up for herself. I guess that
• 49:48
  Speaker 3: that baseball stadium climax was added, but audiences didn't like that.
• 49:55
  Speaker 3: Kimmy never advocated for herself the entire movie, so I
• 49:59
  Speaker 3: guess that was because of poor test screenings that that
• 50:02
  Speaker 3: scene was added, which I do think is interesting and
• 50:04
  Speaker 3: says you know, how you feel about it. Good that
• 50:07
  Speaker 3: are indifferent is up to you, But like does say
• 50:09
  Speaker 3: something about nineteen ninety seven, like the things that people
• 50:13
  Speaker 3: were responding to, because I think that like the scene
• 50:17
  Speaker 3: where Kimy stands up for herself, it's not enough because
• 50:20
  Speaker 3: it's still ultimately undercut by the plot of the movie,
• 50:24
  Speaker 3: which I guess makes more sense once you know that
• 50:26
  Speaker 3: it wasn't originally there. But I am glad that that
• 50:30
  Speaker 3: scene is there, you know, I just wish that Kimmy,
• 50:33
  Speaker 3: Kimmy's character was able to recognize how this was not
• 50:39
  Speaker 3: the fault of one person that, like Julianne, certainly deserved
• 50:43
  Speaker 3: to have a new asshole riped for her. Fine, but
• 50:47
  Speaker 3: the fact that it is very much presented as like
• 50:51
  Speaker 3: Julianne's the other woman, and the other woman narrative always
• 50:55
  Speaker 3: erases any fault of the man that she's going back to,
• 50:59
  Speaker 3: and so that scene was again I see what they
• 51:03
  Speaker 3: were trying to do, but it's still like this movie
• 51:06
  Speaker 3: just like doesn't work if you treat Michael as as
• 51:11
  Speaker 3: on the chaffing block for morality as Kimmy or Julianne is,
• 51:15
  Speaker 3: but he's not. So it just yeah, but anyways, that's
• 51:18
  Speaker 3: the production stuff.
• 51:20
  Speaker 2: Yeah, very interesting. Shall we kind of go character by character? Yeah,
• 51:26
  Speaker 2: let's set starting with I guess Julianne.
• 51:31
  Speaker 3: Not Julia.
• 51:32
  Speaker 2: Julianne, not Julia Roberts, no Julianne. She's presented as a
• 51:39
  Speaker 2: bit of a guy's goal.
• 51:41
  Speaker 3: Definitely.
• 51:41
  Speaker 2: Yeah, she's not like the other girls. She they spell
• 51:45
  Speaker 2: this out in dialogue that she's not up for anything
• 51:48
  Speaker 2: conventional or that's assumed to be a female priority, including marriage, romance,
• 51:53
  Speaker 2: or love. She hates weddings. She's only cried three times
• 51:58
  Speaker 2: in her life. And I guess it.
• 52:00
  Speaker 3: Yeah, just like quality is frequently attributed to men, not
• 52:04
  Speaker 3: based in nothing comes from somewhere, but like being like,
• 52:08
  Speaker 3: isn't it cooler? When it's a I mean, and it's
• 52:11
  Speaker 3: weird because I sort of, you know, not completely remembering
• 52:14
  Speaker 3: how the movie goes. Specifically, it's very weird that, like
• 52:18
  Speaker 3: Julia Roberts is presented as a guy's gal, and then
• 52:21
  Speaker 3: camer Diaz is presented as no one's goal, and so
• 52:24
  Speaker 3: there's just not room for any friendships between women by design.
• 52:30
  Speaker 3: Like it's so I thought that Cameron Diaz was going
• 52:33
  Speaker 3: to be presented as a girl's girl, pejorative, but they
• 52:39
  Speaker 3: can't even do that. They're just like, for some reason,
• 52:42
  Speaker 3: no one likes this sweet, wealthy, conventionally attractive model. Everyone
• 52:49
  Speaker 3: hates her. You're like, what, what are you talking about?
• 52:52
  Speaker 2: It's more just that she's so undercooked as a character
• 52:57
  Speaker 2: that there's no rhyme or reason to why she she
• 53:00
  Speaker 2: doesn't have more friends.
• 53:03
  Speaker 3: I just feel so bad for you. I feel I'm
• 53:04
  Speaker 3: overreacting with Kimmy because I just feel protective of her.
• 53:08
  Speaker 2: Because she's also twenty and she's not even of legal
• 53:11
  Speaker 2: drinking age, and she's.
• 53:13
  Speaker 3: Still drinking her own wedding. This should not be happening.
• 53:17
  Speaker 3: No a plot contrivance that I felt neutrally towards. It's
• 53:21
  Speaker 3: just a rom com thing is that Julia Roberts is,
• 53:25
  Speaker 3: of course a writer. Her love interests also a writer.
• 53:29
  Speaker 3: Her actual best friend George also a writer. Does this
• 53:32
  Speaker 3: ever come into the plot? Are they ever seen writing
• 53:37
  Speaker 3: other than one evil email?
• 53:40
  Speaker 2: No?
• 53:40
  Speaker 3: These are the jobs. There are three jobs these kinds
• 53:43
  Speaker 3: of people can have. Writer with infinite PTO is one
• 53:50
  Speaker 3: of the jobs. And also her boss is taking PTO
• 53:54
  Speaker 3: to do various hijinks.
• 53:56
  Speaker 2: Yeah, he flies from New York to Chicago twice in
• 54:00
  Speaker 2: a matter of two days.
• 54:03
  Speaker 3: There is no one I love in the world at once,
• 54:06
  Speaker 3: sure to us, But that's because that's because in the
• 54:11
  Speaker 3: original script he doesn't fly back. The second time. He
• 54:14
  Speaker 3: never comes back, and then Rupert Everett's character was testing
• 54:17
  Speaker 3: so well that's why they ended up deciding to bring
• 54:20
  Speaker 3: him back, which I think is one of the more
• 54:23
  Speaker 3: effective subversive things that happens in the movie. Is that
• 54:26
  Speaker 3: like whatever that like, friendship can be just as fulfilling
• 54:32
  Speaker 3: a thing as what you're told you're supposed to be
• 54:35
  Speaker 3: doing at a certain stage in your life. And there
• 54:37
  Speaker 3: are other ways to find joy and fulfillment. And I
• 54:42
  Speaker 3: appreciate that message, but it was added basically in post
• 54:47
  Speaker 3: like it was kind of there because people really liked
• 54:49
  Speaker 3: Rupert Everett versus anything else.
• 54:53
  Speaker 2: Yeah, right, and back to the julian guy's girl only
• 55:00
  Speaker 2: has friends who are men, and then when she meets Kimmy,
• 55:06
  Speaker 2: the rest of the movie hinges on. I mean, there's
• 55:10
  Speaker 2: like varying degrees of what we see here where there's
• 55:13
  Speaker 2: like the scene at karaoke where Julianne is like deliberately
• 55:17
  Speaker 2: being cruel to Kimmy and like trying to exclude her
• 55:20
  Speaker 2: from the conversation, trying to make her feel jealous, things
• 55:23
  Speaker 2: like that. Other times she's being more pleasant to her,
• 55:29
  Speaker 2: but it's because Julianne is like conspiring and needs Kimmy's help.
• 55:35
  Speaker 2: But really she's just using Kimmy to try to get
• 55:39
  Speaker 2: Michael to hate his own fiance. Like there's all these
• 55:42
  Speaker 2: things that she does. Anyway you look at it, it
• 55:45
  Speaker 2: boils down to like this is a narrative about two
• 55:49
  Speaker 2: women who are competing against each other over the affections
• 55:53
  Speaker 2: of and looser exactly because there's that scene where and
• 55:58
  Speaker 2: this is understandable, but like, I mean not Kimmy's behavior
• 56:01
  Speaker 2: in the scene where she like stops an elevator to
• 56:04
  Speaker 2: be like I'm jealous of you, right, but like she
• 56:09
  Speaker 2: expresses that to Julianne, which I think is honestly like
• 56:13
  Speaker 2: an interesting thing.
• 56:15
  Speaker 3: Right, I don't hate that, And I feel like the
• 56:18
  Speaker 3: way it was actually written and the way it's introduced
• 56:21
  Speaker 3: in the movie, I thought like the direction of it
• 56:22
  Speaker 3: was weird, but like on its face, it's not something
• 56:26
  Speaker 3: you're expecting. Like, I feel like that was the first
• 56:29
  Speaker 3: indication that, like, Kimmy is smarter and more emotionally intelligent
• 56:34
  Speaker 3: than we are being encouraged to give her credit for
• 56:37
  Speaker 3: because we're seeing all of these tropes she's young, she's friendless,
• 56:40
  Speaker 3: she's a bad driver because question mark like women, because
• 56:44
  Speaker 3: she's rich or a woman to strive, Like, I don't
• 56:47
  Speaker 3: really know what the joke was there, but like you know,
• 56:50
  Speaker 3: we're basically being thought like she's a spoiled brat, right,
• 56:54
  Speaker 3: and she doesn't even realize what's going on. She's a
• 56:58
  Speaker 3: brainless Like I feel like they're just playing on blonde tropes.
• 57:01
  Speaker 3: They're playing on rich girl trubs, they're playing on young
• 57:04
  Speaker 3: woman trubes. And then they do bring that to a
• 57:06
  Speaker 3: screeching halt, and we know that Kimmy, of course she's twenty,
• 57:10
  Speaker 3: but she was not actually born yesterday, Like she does
• 57:14
  Speaker 3: realize that this is a weird dynamic and that her
• 57:19
  Speaker 3: asking Julianne to be her maid of honor is kind
• 57:22
  Speaker 3: of this over correction made out of insecurity, and she's
• 57:25
  Speaker 3: honest about that, which is more emotionally intelligent than the
• 57:29
  Speaker 3: other two demonstrate the entire movie where it's like, yes
• 57:33
  Speaker 3: is admitting to I mean, it's kind of a confusing too,
• 57:36
  Speaker 3: because it's like she's also not wrong. It's not like
• 57:39
  Speaker 3: she's being paranoid or I don't know. But then that
• 57:43
  Speaker 3: introduced like she is threatened by this other woman, which
• 57:47
  Speaker 3: is such a frequent thing that like there are two
• 57:51
  Speaker 3: primary women characters in this movie and they are pitted
• 57:53
  Speaker 3: against each other. And also in the world of this movie,
• 57:57
  Speaker 3: that is true, like he is.
• 57:59
  Speaker 2: Like emotionallyting on Kimmy with Julianne in several scenes.
• 58:03
  Speaker 3: With the elevator scene, I think that, yeah, it was
• 58:07
  Speaker 3: over the top, but at its core, what happens in
• 58:10
  Speaker 3: that scene, I wish it had just happened in maybe
• 58:13
  Speaker 3: a room, but it's a rob com. It had to
• 58:16
  Speaker 3: happen in a stopped elevator while Julia Roberts was having
• 58:19
  Speaker 3: a panic attack, But what Kimmy communicates there is pretty
• 58:25
  Speaker 3: vulnerable and reasonable, and yeah, it just demonstrates like she
• 58:31
  Speaker 3: can read the room like this is weird. And it
• 58:34
  Speaker 3: is the scene that pissed me off the most is
• 58:38
  Speaker 3: when I forget what they're on their way to, but
• 58:41
  Speaker 3: like all three of them are in a car and
• 58:43
  Speaker 3: then Julia Roberts and Dermott Maroney just get out of
• 58:47
  Speaker 3: the car and go on a date. Yeah, and Kimmy
• 58:51
  Speaker 3: feels weird about it. She's like, are you sure? Should
• 58:54
  Speaker 3: we should we do this? Are you sure? And they're like, yeah,
• 58:57
  Speaker 3: we're gonna go on a date, see you later, sucker,
• 59:00
  Speaker 3: And I was like, what the fuck? Like I felt
• 59:02
  Speaker 3: so horrible for her, where she clearly did not want
• 59:06
  Speaker 3: them to and understandably did not want them to get
• 59:10
  Speaker 3: out of the car and go on a date due
• 59:11
  Speaker 3: to they were getting into a monogamous marriage the next day. Yeah,
• 59:17
  Speaker 3: but then Dermot Moroney just goes on a date. Where
• 59:19
  Speaker 3: are the essays about that? Because yes, yes, Julianne is
• 59:25
  Speaker 3: being forty chess pto ratitudey critic, like she's being bad,
• 59:33
  Speaker 3: she's acting out, but like Dermot Rammoni is not being
• 59:37
  Speaker 3: dragged out of the car. He's like, yes, I would
• 59:40
  Speaker 3: like to go on a date on this the evening
• 59:42
  Speaker 3: of my marriage. Like he's being bad and he's being
• 59:45
  Speaker 3: flirtatious the entire time they're together.
• 59:48
  Speaker 2: Openly in front of her, his fiance.
• 59:51
  Speaker 3: And her family, and You're like, a true billionaire family
• 59:55
  Speaker 3: would have him killed. Yeah, Like they would just have
• 59:58
  Speaker 3: him die under mysterious. They would chap aquittic him, like
• 1:00:03
  Speaker 3: off of in the like Chicago river, he would get
• 1:00:06
  Speaker 3: chap aquatic. Yeah, it's just so frustrating.
• 1:00:11
  Speaker 2: The scene that really, and we already alluded to this,
• 1:00:13
  Speaker 2: but just the worst thing I've ever seen is this
• 1:00:18
  Speaker 2: is the scene where Kimmy pitches, oh, why don't you
• 1:00:21
  Speaker 2: work for my dad? And the way he lashes out.
• 1:00:25
  Speaker 2: He screams at Kimmy, accusing her of lying. He's like,
• 1:00:30
  Speaker 2: why don't you start by being honest for one second?
• 1:00:33
  Speaker 2: And she's like I am.
• 1:00:34
  Speaker 3: You're like, excuse you? What about the rest of the table, right, And.
• 1:00:40
  Speaker 2: To Kimmy's credit, she says, what like, all of a sudden,
• 1:00:44
  Speaker 2: I'm supposed to drop out of school, forget my family,
• 1:00:46
  Speaker 2: forget my career, forget about all the things I had
• 1:00:49
  Speaker 2: planned for my life, and he responds, well, forgive me
• 1:00:53
  Speaker 2: for screwing up your plans. I'm just glad that I'm
• 1:00:57
  Speaker 2: hearing about this before it's too late. What am I
• 1:00:59
  Speaker 2: supposed to do with my life? Huh? I work a
• 1:01:01
  Speaker 2: low paying, zero respect job, which I happened to love.
• 1:01:04
  Speaker 2: And then Julianne tries to interject, saying like, hey, Michael,
• 1:01:09
  Speaker 2: maybe this is actually a good opportunity for you, and
• 1:01:12
  Speaker 2: he's like, oh, yeah, well, how come you never took
• 1:01:15
  Speaker 2: some sellout job. That's it's because that's not you and
• 1:01:18
  Speaker 2: that's not me either.
• 1:01:19
  Speaker 3: Just say it.
• 1:01:20
  Speaker 2: I'm not good enough for you, Kimmy, and she's now
• 1:01:23
  Speaker 2: crying at this point. She's like, yeah, you ever said that?
• 1:01:26
  Speaker 2: And she didn't, she didn't, and then he continues to
• 1:01:31
  Speaker 2: lay into her. He's like, fine, I'm the sexist, insensitive
• 1:01:36
  Speaker 2: asshole and it's like yeah, yeah, correct, And now Kimmy
• 1:01:40
  Speaker 2: is bawling. She's pleading, like groveling at his feet, being like,
• 1:01:46
  Speaker 2: you're so right. I was so wrong. We settled this,
• 1:01:49
  Speaker 2: I renegged. It wasn't fair. You have to forgive me,
• 1:01:52
  Speaker 2: blah blah blah, and it's just like no, Kimmy, like
• 1:01:55
  Speaker 2: you started up like it's this started out in a
• 1:01:58
  Speaker 2: way because she's again she's advocating for herself.
• 1:02:00
  Speaker 3: Which was at Julianne's suggestion. Though too it was like
• 1:02:04
  Speaker 3: it wasn't even really her idea to advocate for herself,
• 1:02:07
  Speaker 3: which just sucks and is like how whatever inherently anti
• 1:02:12
  Speaker 3: woman the character of Julianne is where she has no
• 1:02:17
  Speaker 3: issue with like the only relationship we see her have
• 1:02:20
  Speaker 3: with another woman is an attempt on her life.
• 1:02:25
  Speaker 2: Basically, it's just so sad. It's so sad, so upsetting.
• 1:02:30
  Speaker 2: And then this is followed by a scene where Julianne
• 1:02:32
  Speaker 2: tells George how wonderful she thinks Michael is, and it's
• 1:02:36
  Speaker 2: like if I saw my best friend, my quote unquote
• 1:02:38
  Speaker 2: best friend speak to their fiance the way that Michael
• 1:02:42
  Speaker 2: speaks to and treats Kimmy, I'd.
• 1:02:44
  Speaker 3: Be like mortified.
• 1:02:46
  Speaker 2: I have to get a new best friend because this
• 1:02:48
  Speaker 2: person is evil.
• 1:02:50
  Speaker 3: Yeah, And the fact that like the subtext of that
• 1:02:52
  Speaker 3: scene is that this dynamic has been was like Julianne's idea.
• 1:02:57
  Speaker 3: I feel like a lot of why the movie is
• 1:03:01
  Speaker 3: encouraging us to think Michael is a good guys. First
• 1:03:04
  Speaker 3: of all, because it was written and directed by men,
• 1:03:06
  Speaker 3: but also because I feel like there's this implication that
• 1:03:11
  Speaker 3: his emotionally abusive behavior is only happening because Julianne set
• 1:03:17
  Speaker 3: him up to do that, and that's just like not
• 1:03:19
  Speaker 3: how people work. Because the question that she quote unquote
• 1:03:23
  Speaker 3: like tricked Kimmy into asking was not even irrational, like
• 1:03:29
  Speaker 3: it was it was Julianne being like, oh, I know
• 1:03:32
  Speaker 3: what will trigger my emotionally abusive friend's abuse tactics. Let
• 1:03:37
  Speaker 3: me do that. And then she does and it happens,
• 1:03:40
  Speaker 3: and she says nothing, and you're like, I hate her,
• 1:03:44
  Speaker 3: and it's so miserable. It's miserable. I hate it. And meanwhile,
• 1:03:51
  Speaker 3: like in that scene, Kimmy is once again being the
• 1:03:54
  Speaker 3: only honest character in the movie, which also introduces kind
• 1:03:57
  Speaker 3: of this dichotomy where Michael ends up with I don't know.
• 1:04:01
  Speaker 3: It sucks because it's like Julianne is objectively an asshole,
• 1:04:06
  Speaker 3: Like I don't think that, Like I think that some
• 1:04:08
  Speaker 3: of the over the top reaction to her of like
• 1:04:11
  Speaker 3: burn the Witch was like, well, no, no, let's not
• 1:04:15
  Speaker 3: kill her. She's an asshole. I'm not like eager for
• 1:04:18
  Speaker 3: her to have a reward for all of this bad behavior.
• 1:04:22
  Speaker 3: But I feel like it also does introduce this like
• 1:04:26
  Speaker 3: because there's no criticism of Michael, and he goes with
• 1:04:30
  Speaker 3: like the woman who is more demure and more willing
• 1:04:35
  Speaker 3: to bow to his will and like things that we
• 1:04:39
  Speaker 3: know Julianne. Julian's not giving her career up for a guy,
• 1:04:43
  Speaker 3: of course, not like there's nothing about her that would
• 1:04:46
  Speaker 3: indicate that, but Kimmy will, and so that sort of
• 1:04:50
  Speaker 3: makes her a like morally superior. Like it just felt
• 1:04:54
  Speaker 3: like the things that Kimmy was willing to sacrifice, because
• 1:04:57
  Speaker 3: she never ends up getting those things back, It is
• 1:05:00
  Speaker 3: pulled into this idea of like what does a morally
• 1:05:03
  Speaker 3: good woman look like in a way that feels really regressive.
• 1:05:08
  Speaker 3: And again, like you're saying, like behind his Girl Friday
• 1:05:12
  Speaker 3: that came out sixty years or so before this, and
• 1:05:16
  Speaker 3: you're just like pretty fucking bleak, Yeah.
• 1:05:21
  Speaker 2: Because the movie ends in a way that we are
• 1:05:24
  Speaker 2: to assume Michael is making zero compromises. He's expecting his
• 1:05:29
  Speaker 2: wife to make every compromise and we're all just supposed
• 1:05:34
  Speaker 2: to be okay with that.
• 1:05:36
  Speaker 3: I mean, it doesn't make anything that Hilly does to
• 1:05:40
  Speaker 3: her por fiance who she's just like batting around like
• 1:05:44
  Speaker 3: a fucking cat toy the whole movie. It doesn't make
• 1:05:47
  Speaker 3: it less emotionally abusive, her like less shitty what she does.
• 1:05:51
  Speaker 3: I think why it works is a number of things.
• 1:05:54
  Speaker 3: First of all, the two assholes end up together, and
• 1:05:57
  Speaker 3: good for them. She is not forced to give up
• 1:06:00
  Speaker 3: her career and at least at very very lee. Also,
• 1:06:04
  Speaker 3: all the performances are better, the direction is better, the
• 1:06:06
  Speaker 3: script is better. This always helps. But at least you
• 1:06:11
  Speaker 3: know the person who she's fucking over is an adult,
• 1:06:15
  Speaker 3: you know, Like it does feel like ultimately, someone who
• 1:06:19
  Speaker 3: has very recently become an adult is being forced to
• 1:06:22
  Speaker 3: sacrifice their future for someone we understand to be an
• 1:06:26
  Speaker 3: emotionally abusive, emotional cheater. But again, the thing with the
• 1:06:31
  Speaker 3: surprise kiss, right, the surprise kiss and the whole George like,
• 1:06:36
  Speaker 3: well did he kiss you back? Did he kiss you back?
• 1:06:40
  Speaker 3: Which is the first time I've heard a surprise kiss
• 1:06:41
  Speaker 3: interrogated on screen, which is interesting. But the fact that
• 1:06:45
  Speaker 3: he doesn't kiss her back is made as a wholesale
• 1:06:49
  Speaker 3: everything else he's done doesn't count because he didn't kiss
• 1:06:54
  Speaker 3: her back, And you're like, that is just like ridiculous.
• 1:06:58
  Speaker 3: That sucks. He's given such a carte blanche. I have
• 1:07:02
  Speaker 3: another thought. You're ready. I'm sorry, I'm talking too much.
• 1:07:06
  Speaker 2: No, I'm ready.
• 1:07:07
  Speaker 3: This movie got me worked up. It got me pissed off. Okay.
• 1:07:10
  Speaker 3: In defense of Julianne, Okay, I can't defend any of
• 1:07:14
  Speaker 3: her actions, but something that I think is interesting. I
• 1:07:18
  Speaker 3: noticed it where part of what is subversive about this movie,
• 1:07:22
  Speaker 3: and I think effectively subversive is that the villain is
• 1:07:27
  Speaker 3: the main character, is the movie star, and is a woman.
• 1:07:30
  Speaker 3: These are all things we don't normally see in a
• 1:07:32
  Speaker 3: movie in this genre. True, Okay, I am glad that
• 1:07:36
  Speaker 3: Julianne was like, had to confront the severity of her actions.
• 1:07:41
  Speaker 3: I am glad that Kimmy, like we were talking about,
• 1:07:45
  Speaker 3: it only goes halfway, because Kimmy is only calling Juliana
• 1:07:49
  Speaker 3: out as if she is the only perpetrator here, when
• 1:07:51
  Speaker 3: there are two people perpetrating this, and the more consequential
• 1:07:56
  Speaker 3: person is about to ruin her life. But you know,
• 1:08:01
  Speaker 3: I'm not upset that Julianne was called out for her behavior.
• 1:08:04
  Speaker 3: I think that makes narrative sense. I do think that
• 1:08:07
  Speaker 3: most men in that same role and position would not
• 1:08:11
  Speaker 3: have to answer for this so severely, and I don't
• 1:08:15
  Speaker 3: think that a man in this character's position would have
• 1:08:18
  Speaker 3: to meaningfully apologize. I mean, like they have Julia Roberts
• 1:08:22
  Speaker 3: on her knees being called the worst piece of shit
• 1:08:27
  Speaker 3: who's ever taken breath, and like, as a rom com
• 1:08:31
  Speaker 3: viewer seeing a woman in this position, for like, if
• 1:08:34
  Speaker 3: not the first time, but one of the first times,
• 1:08:37
  Speaker 3: it feels like, Okay, so if we're putting a woman
• 1:08:41
  Speaker 3: in the villain role, she's going to have to spend
• 1:08:43
  Speaker 3: the last fifteen minutes eating shit at unprecedented rates. Where
• 1:08:48
  Speaker 3: you know, if you put Freddy Prince Junior, he's like, yeah,
• 1:08:51
  Speaker 3: so I've been lying to you and that's why your
• 1:08:54
  Speaker 3: life sucks. Do you want to be my girlfriend? Like
• 1:08:57
  Speaker 3: my bee? I don't even really have a like moral thing,
• 1:09:00
  Speaker 3: because I don't think that this character deserves to be
• 1:09:03
  Speaker 3: let off the hook for what she's done. But I
• 1:09:05
  Speaker 3: do feel like the reason that, or at least part
• 1:09:08
  Speaker 3: of the reason that she we're really meant to sit
• 1:09:11
  Speaker 3: in the consequences of her actions is because it's a
• 1:09:15
  Speaker 3: woman in this role, right.
• 1:09:16
  Speaker 2: And because women are expected to be morally upstanding and
• 1:09:21
  Speaker 2: they're not allowed to misbehave, and just the standard for
• 1:09:27
  Speaker 2: behavior for women is very different than it is for men.
• 1:09:31
  Speaker 2: I also think it's interesting that the apology that she
• 1:09:33
  Speaker 2: gives to Michael again on her knees, groveling, insulting herself,
• 1:09:39
  Speaker 2: calling herself upon scumb blah blah blah, versus the apology
• 1:09:44
  Speaker 2: slash acknowledgment of her behavior that she gives to Kimmy
• 1:09:50
  Speaker 2: in the bathroom of the stadium is very different. She
• 1:09:54
  Speaker 2: kind of doesn't really even apologize to Kimmy. She says like, yeah,
• 1:09:59
  Speaker 2: I did all these bad things, but I lost, so okay.
• 1:10:05
  Speaker 2: And then you're like Kimmy like no, forgives her and
• 1:10:09
  Speaker 2: hugs her and she's like, oh my god, blah blah blah.
• 1:10:12
  Speaker 2: But it's like a very different apology slash like a
• 1:10:15
  Speaker 2: non apology that Julianne gives to Kimmy, and I think
• 1:10:18
  Speaker 2: that she owes her a far more significant apology.
• 1:10:23
  Speaker 3: I totally agree Kimmy is owed an apology by both
• 1:10:26
  Speaker 3: characters in this movie. And we certainly don't see Michael
• 1:10:29
  Speaker 3: apologize for anyway, and based on how he talks to her,
• 1:10:33
  Speaker 3: he never will, right, And you're totally right, like the
• 1:10:37
  Speaker 3: point of that scene being added was for Kimmy to
• 1:10:42
  Speaker 3: stand up for herself in some way and for Julianne
• 1:10:46
  Speaker 3: to be called out explicitly by the person who is
• 1:10:50
  Speaker 3: hurting the most from this. But it's like Kimmy doesn't
• 1:10:54
  Speaker 3: ultimately really get anything out of that scene. She does
• 1:10:57
  Speaker 3: get to, you know, the catharsis of being like you
• 1:11:00
  Speaker 3: fucking suck, which is true, and like you have publicly
• 1:11:04
  Speaker 3: humiliated me on purpose in spite of the fact that
• 1:11:06
  Speaker 3: I am a stranger and almost a child. And it
• 1:11:11
  Speaker 3: works on paper, but yeah, if you think about the consequences,
• 1:11:14
  Speaker 3: how does Julianne respond. She's mostly embarrassed that she's been
• 1:11:19
  Speaker 3: humiliated like this. It doesn't feel like she's genuinely feeling
• 1:11:23
  Speaker 3: remorse for what she's done. She's just upset that she's
• 1:11:25
  Speaker 3: being yelled at in a bathroom and she's upset. And
• 1:11:28
  Speaker 3: this is why I mean, And I don't know at
• 1:11:30
  Speaker 3: this point, I really don't know how this character's being written,
• 1:11:33
  Speaker 3: because this character's being rewritten. But I don't know if
• 1:11:38
  Speaker 3: she really feels bad about what she's done or she's
• 1:11:42
  Speaker 3: just embarrassed that she lost, you know, like HM. At
• 1:11:47
  Speaker 3: the end of the movie. I do sort of get
• 1:11:49
  Speaker 3: the feeling that like she has grown in that at
• 1:11:52
  Speaker 3: the beginning of the movie she thought she could do this,
• 1:11:56
  Speaker 3: and at the end of the movie she realizes that
• 1:11:59
  Speaker 3: she couldn't. But I still am unclear. And again, this
• 1:12:02
  Speaker 3: is like a valueless thing, like if you like Julianne, like,
• 1:12:05
  Speaker 3: because everyone does fuck up, not like this, but everyone
• 1:12:08
  Speaker 3: does fuck up. Like I feel like plenty of people
• 1:12:10
  Speaker 3: have done things that they are embarrassed about in hindsight
• 1:12:14
  Speaker 3: romantically right, sure, and sometimes it does involve hurting other
• 1:12:18
  Speaker 3: people blah blah blah, rarely this bad, rarely this evil.
• 1:12:21
  Speaker 3: I will say there is a change in her character
• 1:12:25
  Speaker 3: from the beginning to the end of the movie, But
• 1:12:27
  Speaker 3: by the end, I was just like, I cannot tell
• 1:12:31
  Speaker 3: if she feels bad about what she's done or she's
• 1:12:33
  Speaker 3: just embarrassed that she lost. I don't know, yeah, and
• 1:12:37
  Speaker 3: I don't even think that like if at the end
• 1:12:39
  Speaker 3: of the day she's like, I'm a little evil and
• 1:12:41
  Speaker 3: I'm just pissed that I lost this round. Like I
• 1:12:44
  Speaker 3: can accept that whatever. I don't need her to be
• 1:12:46
  Speaker 3: morally perfect, but I just like it wasn't clear to
• 1:12:49
  Speaker 3: me which it was, and Also, I'm like, right, she's
• 1:12:52
  Speaker 3: supposed to be friends with Michael after this, absolutely not,
• 1:12:56
  Speaker 3: you know, like I this is the last time she'll
• 1:12:59
  Speaker 3: see either of these.
• 1:13:00
  Speaker 2: Yeah. I wonder if this will affect her relationship with George,
• 1:13:04
  Speaker 2: because George witnessed her be pretty awful to several people,
• 1:13:10
  Speaker 2: And if he were any upstanding person, he'd be like, hey, Julianne, uh,
• 1:13:16
  Speaker 2: maybe stop trying to break up a marriage. See.
• 1:13:20
  Speaker 3: If I'm George, I would extort her for money. Hmm, okay,
• 1:13:25
  Speaker 3: I would be like, you better not ever give any
• 1:13:27
  Speaker 3: of my friends a bad restaurant review. You're wrapped around
• 1:13:30
  Speaker 3: my finger. You're gonna give my friend Remy the rat
• 1:13:33
  Speaker 3: the best review he's ever seen.
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 2: Wow?
• 1:13:35
  Speaker 3: Yeah, Rupert Everett, was he in Ratitui because he should
• 1:13:39
  Speaker 3: have been.
• 1:13:40
  Speaker 2: Oh, I'm not sure, But let's talk about George while
• 1:13:44
  Speaker 2: we're on the yes subject. So he is a gay
• 1:13:49
  Speaker 2: character and is played by a real life gay actor.
• 1:13:54
  Speaker 3: A real life gay actor. Yes, Oh my gosh.
• 1:13:58
  Speaker 2: Which is something that I found surprising for a mainstream
• 1:14:02
  Speaker 2: movie in the nineties. First of all, that it has
• 1:14:05
  Speaker 2: a openly gay character at all, and that they cast
• 1:14:09
  Speaker 2: a gay actor to play that character. Because, as we've
• 1:14:12
  Speaker 2: discussed on countless occasions in this era and obviously before,
• 1:14:17
  Speaker 2: if there were gay characters present in a movie at all,
• 1:14:22
  Speaker 2: they were often either the butt of a homophobic joke,
• 1:14:25
  Speaker 2: they were written and performed using reductive stereotypes, they were
• 1:14:30
  Speaker 2: not allowed to be explicitly queer, and they were just
• 1:14:33
  Speaker 2: queer coded any number of things like this. All of
• 1:14:36
  Speaker 2: that is generally avoided with the George character. However, you know,
• 1:14:42
  Speaker 2: he's only there to serve the story of the straight protagonist.
• 1:14:47
  Speaker 2: He doesn't have any romantic storyline of his own.
• 1:14:50
  Speaker 3: No. Yeah, it's a very half step in the right
• 1:14:52
  Speaker 3: direction where his character is adhering to some tropes and
• 1:14:57
  Speaker 3: others not. I do think that he is. Ultimately he
• 1:15:00
  Speaker 3: and Kimmy are the moral centers of the movie, and
• 1:15:04
  Speaker 3: that George, I don't know. I mean, he's a little chaotic,
• 1:15:08
  Speaker 3: right Like at certain points he calls Julian in to reflect,
• 1:15:13
  Speaker 3: and then other times he's like, what if you did
• 1:15:15
  Speaker 3: this convoluted email scheme? You know, Like so he is
• 1:15:18
  Speaker 3: a little all over the place. He's flawed like any
• 1:15:20
  Speaker 3: of us. And he does yes, like you're saying, have
• 1:15:23
  Speaker 3: unlimited PTO to assist his straight friend in various nefarious schemes,
• 1:15:29
  Speaker 3: which is another very trophy type of trope. But I
• 1:15:34
  Speaker 3: agree that it is a I don't even know if
• 1:15:36
  Speaker 3: it's a step in the right direction. Certainly unusual for
• 1:15:39
  Speaker 3: the time that there is an openly gig character played
• 1:15:42
  Speaker 3: by I. Actually I don't know that Rubert Everett was
• 1:15:45
  Speaker 3: completely out at this time. I've seen different versions of
• 1:15:49
  Speaker 3: the timeline, and I didn't want to pathologize about it,
• 1:15:52
  Speaker 3: but he had played many gay and queer characters in
• 1:15:56
  Speaker 3: the past. It was something he was known for. And
• 1:15:58
  Speaker 3: he also, because of how gay actors are typed, played
• 1:16:02
  Speaker 3: a lot of villains. So that was something kind of
• 1:16:05
  Speaker 3: interesting about the casting process where I forget who it was,
• 1:16:08
  Speaker 3: but someone was like, oh, Rupert Everett has to play George,
• 1:16:11
  Speaker 3: and they were like, why he always plays a villain
• 1:16:13
  Speaker 3: who dies, and they're like, listen, he has to play George.
• 1:16:18
  Speaker 3: And then he ended up getting cast, and I think
• 1:16:20
  Speaker 3: he is like very much a high point of the movie.
• 1:16:23
  Speaker 3: There are all these trips. I mean, even at the
• 1:16:25
  Speaker 3: beginning of that, like the thing that had me rolling
• 1:16:28
  Speaker 3: my eyes the most outside of the fact that obviously
• 1:16:31
  Speaker 3: the thing I'll say that's good is that we know
• 1:16:33
  Speaker 3: he has a life outside of Julia Roberts, because we
• 1:16:36
  Speaker 3: see him at dinner parties, he's throwing, we see him
• 1:16:39
  Speaker 3: at events, we see him doing different things. But he's
• 1:16:41
  Speaker 3: not allowed to have a relationship.
• 1:16:43
  Speaker 2: Well, he mentioned someone is though he's talking about a partner. Yes,
• 1:16:48
  Speaker 2: I forget the man's name, but he's referring to we
• 1:16:51
  Speaker 2: never see him, right, or if we do see him,
• 1:16:54
  Speaker 2: we don't realize that's his partner, because that's how underthought
• 1:16:58
  Speaker 2: that relationship.
• 1:16:59
  Speaker 3: I don't even think underthought. I think it's strategic about
• 1:17:02
  Speaker 3: how gay characters could or could not be shown in
• 1:17:04
  Speaker 3: mainstream movies.
• 1:17:05
  Speaker 2: At that time.
• 1:17:06
  Speaker 3: But I don't know, because you also think about the
• 1:17:07
  Speaker 3: bird Cage came out around this time too. It wasn't
• 1:17:10
  Speaker 3: like a time like nineties popular movies were kind of
• 1:17:14
  Speaker 3: a crap shoot, We're about to cover Priscilla Quid to
• 1:17:17
  Speaker 3: the Desert, like it wasn't verboten. But they're clearly I
• 1:17:22
  Speaker 3: don't know if it's I'm assuming it's the studio, but
• 1:17:24
  Speaker 3: like there clearly is a line like, well, this is
• 1:17:27
  Speaker 3: as much representation as will allow. We would not allow
• 1:17:30
  Speaker 3: a visible partner.
• 1:17:32
  Speaker 2: Right, Certainly they can't touch or kiss. That would be no.
• 1:17:37
  Speaker 3: The thing that like really solidified, like, okay, this movie
• 1:17:41
  Speaker 3: has I remember George's character because he is one of
• 1:17:43
  Speaker 3: the more fun characters, even though even Rupert Everett can't
• 1:17:47
  Speaker 3: save how annoying I find the karaoke scene. Not the karaokes.
• 1:17:50
  Speaker 3: Actually I like the karaoke scene with Camera Diaz, the
• 1:17:54
  Speaker 3: Dean Warwick.
• 1:17:55
  Speaker 2: Yeah, that scene the lunch singing the song.
• 1:17:58
  Speaker 3: Yeah, I thought that the Cameron de Has karaoke scene.
• 1:18:01
  Speaker 3: He's very charming. Anyways, even though she should divorce him.
• 1:18:06
  Speaker 3: I do feel like Kimmy is like sort of a
• 1:18:08
  Speaker 3: future Real Housewives cast member.
• 1:18:11
  Speaker 2: Okay, maybe five, like twenty.
• 1:18:12
  Speaker 3: Years down the line. Anyways, Yeah, with George. The thing
• 1:18:16
  Speaker 3: that really sold me on, like, Okay, this movie is
• 1:18:19
  Speaker 3: not going to cross a certain line of representation. Is
• 1:18:22
  Speaker 3: when in the introduction scene or no, I think the
• 1:18:26
  Speaker 3: first time that she's in Chicago and he's in New
• 1:18:28
  Speaker 3: York and they're on the phone, he says the word
• 1:18:30
  Speaker 3: gay whispered while he's at home. He says, even though
• 1:18:35
  Speaker 3: I'm you're like, you're at your apartment like that. That
• 1:18:40
  Speaker 3: is the values of the movie. That's not you. It
• 1:18:44
  Speaker 3: was just like, Okay, you can say gay but quietly,
• 1:18:48
  Speaker 3: you know, and that's how this is represented.
• 1:18:50
  Speaker 2: Unless he's like making a joke about how he's had
• 1:18:55
  Speaker 2: to conceal that part of himself, I could maybe see that.
• 1:19:00
  Speaker 3: I think that that's even likely, But I just feel
• 1:19:03
  Speaker 3: like the representation of a gay character in this movie
• 1:19:06
  Speaker 3: is gay but whispered instead of stated. But again, whispered
• 1:19:11
  Speaker 3: in nineteen ninety seven wasn't nothing, but it's still like,
• 1:19:15
  Speaker 3: I mean, you can point to a number of successful
• 1:19:19
  Speaker 3: movies around this time in the same genre that had
• 1:19:23
  Speaker 3: openly gay characters in a relationship that did tremendously well,
• 1:19:28
  Speaker 3: and we're very loved because The Bird Cage came out
• 1:19:30
  Speaker 3: the year before this movie, So I think that it
• 1:19:33
  Speaker 3: is still very like more than you're used to for
• 1:19:37
  Speaker 3: the time, certainly, but also like this I think goes
• 1:19:40
  Speaker 3: below the bar for even nineteen ninety seven in terms
• 1:19:44
  Speaker 3: of representation, just because of the lack of a life
• 1:19:48
  Speaker 3: that George has outside of it. I do like that
• 1:19:51
  Speaker 3: he's kind of the moral center of the movie. I
• 1:19:53
  Speaker 3: kind of like his and Julienn's relationship. I like that
• 1:19:58
  Speaker 3: he's her boss. I like that he is like they're
• 1:20:01
  Speaker 3: they're both a bit nefarious, but like they're just kind
• 1:20:04
  Speaker 3: of trying to I don't know. I don't dislike their friendship.
• 1:20:08
  Speaker 3: I think they'll stay friends forever. And I think he'll
• 1:20:10
  Speaker 3: be like, this is Julianne. She's my friend who's kind
• 1:20:13
  Speaker 3: of evil, you know, like when she goes to his
• 1:20:17
  Speaker 3: wedding in the future, when it's legal, that will be
• 1:20:22
  Speaker 3: her actual best friend's wedding.
• 1:20:24
  Speaker 2: Yeah, it'll be like twenty eighteen or something.
• 1:20:28
  Speaker 3: Yeah, it'll be twenty fifteen and they'll be getting married
• 1:20:30
  Speaker 3: in New York and she'll be like, oh, this is
• 1:20:33
  Speaker 3: my best friend's wedding. Not that I want a sequel
• 1:20:37
  Speaker 3: another version of this movie, I don't. Although this movie
• 1:20:40
  Speaker 3: was I think adapted twice internationally, Like it was so
• 1:20:44
  Speaker 3: successful that there was a I believe a Chinese version
• 1:20:48
  Speaker 3: of it, and then one other one.
• 1:20:50
  Speaker 2: Am I wait, I think there's a version that came
• 1:20:53
  Speaker 2: out in Mexico.
• 1:20:54
  Speaker 3: Yes, just a couple of years ago, in twenty nineteen.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 4: Yeah.
• 1:20:57
  Speaker 3: So it is a very enduring thing. It was almost.
• 1:21:00
  Speaker 2: A musical and a Bollywood movie was inspired partially, okay
• 1:21:06
  Speaker 2: by this movie.
• 1:21:07
  Speaker 3: So and I honestly, I mean as frustrating as I
• 1:21:10
  Speaker 3: find this movie, it does feel weirdly old Hollywood in
• 1:21:14
  Speaker 3: the internal mechanics of it. But unfortunately, having just covered
• 1:21:20
  Speaker 3: his girl Friday, it might have worked better and more
• 1:21:23
  Speaker 3: subversively a half century before it came out, because it
• 1:21:26
  Speaker 3: was just doing nothing for me with nineteen ninety seven.
• 1:21:29
  Speaker 3: This is not a plot that belongs in the age
• 1:21:32
  Speaker 3: of computers. Yeah, there was almost a Broadway musical that
• 1:21:36
  Speaker 3: came out, but Covid thwarted it. And yeah, I don't know.
• 1:21:42
  Speaker 3: Do you have anything else to talk about for this movie.
• 1:21:44
  Speaker 2: It's a very very white movie. Yes, people of color
• 1:21:48
  Speaker 2: have nothing in terms of character or even spoken lines.
• 1:21:53
  Speaker 3: And in all white New York and Chicago, which is
• 1:21:56
  Speaker 3: a really a two hander for famously diverse cities that
• 1:22:01
  Speaker 3: in this movie are only white.
• 1:22:02
  Speaker 2: I was grossed out by the scene where Julianne they're
• 1:22:07
  Speaker 2: in like the whatever like box at a white Sox game,
• 1:22:12
  Speaker 2: and she's talking to Michael's teenage brother Scott played by
• 1:22:20
  Speaker 2: Christopher Masterson, the brother of disgraced sex criminal Danny Masterson.
• 1:22:25
  Speaker 3: Fun fact, Julianne is like.
• 1:22:28
  Speaker 2: You have to dance with me at the wedding, and
• 1:22:31
  Speaker 2: she holds him really close and It's just like, why
• 1:22:33
  Speaker 2: are we normalizing adults being sexually suggestive toward teenagers.
• 1:22:40
  Speaker 3: Which is objectively you know, give her take a couple months.
• 1:22:43
  Speaker 3: What Michael is doing. He's marrying a twenty year old.
• 1:22:47
  Speaker 3: I hate these I hate these freaks. They're freaks.
• 1:22:52
  Speaker 2: Yes. The other quick thing was Kimmy describing her other
• 1:22:58
  Speaker 2: bridesmaids as debutante sisters from Nashville who are basically vengeful sluts,
• 1:23:04
  Speaker 2: which does pass the Bechdel test because she's describing them
• 1:23:07
  Speaker 2: too well.
• 1:23:08
  Speaker 4: I also clocked that to Julianne, which also again just
• 1:23:12
  Speaker 4: speaks to the dissonance of Kimmy's character, because Kimmy at
• 1:23:15
  Speaker 4: the end of the movie would never say that, but
• 1:23:17
  Speaker 4: for some reason, Kimmy at the beginning of the movie
• 1:23:19
  Speaker 4: would say that, because we're supposed to hate her at
• 1:23:21
  Speaker 4: the beginning, and so she says awful things.
• 1:23:24
  Speaker 3: And like, when there's no like this movie, I feel like, really,
• 1:23:28
  Speaker 3: I don't like it on the first watch, But on
• 1:23:30
  Speaker 3: the second watch, it's somehow even more frustrating because it's
• 1:23:33
  Speaker 3: so obvious that really every character, but basically every character
• 1:23:38
  Speaker 3: that isn't Julianne or Michael, are written moment to moment
• 1:23:41
  Speaker 3: to serve the plot, and there's no consistency because I
• 1:23:44
  Speaker 3: really don't think third act Kimmy would talk about people
• 1:23:49
  Speaker 3: that way, like she's the sweetest girl in the world.
• 1:23:51
  Speaker 3: By the end of the movie, she's flawless, which is
• 1:23:54
  Speaker 3: another thing where it's like, oh, the person who deserves
• 1:23:56
  Speaker 3: to get married is has to be willing to sacrifice everything.
• 1:23:58
  Speaker 3: It has to have no flaw right.
• 1:24:01
  Speaker 2: Yeah. Also, one of the bridesmaids tried to give a
• 1:24:06
  Speaker 2: blowjob to an ice sculpture and got stuck to it.
• 1:24:10
  Speaker 3: That was me. I thought that was like, yeah, I
• 1:24:16
  Speaker 3: don't have any like I just was like, weird, weird joke,
• 1:24:21
  Speaker 3: weird joke. What are we supposed to think about? This family?
• 1:24:24
  Speaker 3: Just kind of yet another moment of like what is
• 1:24:27
  Speaker 3: this family like? Confusing?
• 1:24:29
  Speaker 2: I don't know, but yeah, that's pretty much all I
• 1:24:33
  Speaker 2: had to say. Yeah, the movie does pass the Bechdel test.
• 1:24:37
  Speaker 2: It's in that aforementioned occasion and probably a couple other times,
• 1:24:43
  Speaker 2: but not enough. But yes, yeah, because mostly it's conversations
• 1:24:48
  Speaker 2: about Michael if Julianne and Kimmy are talking to each other,
• 1:24:52
  Speaker 2: for example. But our nipple scale though, yees, where we
• 1:24:57
  Speaker 2: rate the movie zero to five nip bulls based on
• 1:25:01
  Speaker 2: examining it through an intersectional feminist lens. I oh boy, again,
• 1:25:11
  Speaker 2: I appreciate its attempts at subverting rom com tropes. Yeah,
• 1:25:17
  Speaker 2: I generally appreciate that in a movie, because there's a
• 1:25:22
  Speaker 2: lot of rom com tropes that should be subverted. But
• 1:25:26
  Speaker 2: the ones that especially should have been subverted, such as
• 1:25:30
  Speaker 2: the man being an awful person and ends up with,
• 1:25:35
  Speaker 2: you know, the love of his life anyway, that one
• 1:25:38
  Speaker 2: doesn't get subverted. And there's really no attention called in
• 1:25:42
  Speaker 2: the movie to how heinous of a person he is.
• 1:25:46
  Speaker 2: All of the attention is called to Julianne, and that
• 1:25:52
  Speaker 2: feels gendered. So that's pepe poo pooh for me. Yeah,
• 1:25:57
  Speaker 2: I think I'm only going to give the movie like
• 1:25:59
  Speaker 2: a half nip. Yeah, and maybe it's because I just
• 1:26:05
  Speaker 2: on a personal level don't like the movie, But I
• 1:26:08
  Speaker 2: just I can't find that much that's redeeming about it, honestly. Yeah,
• 1:26:13
  Speaker 2: maybe I'll bump it up to a one. No, I'm
• 1:26:17
  Speaker 2: gonna stick with point five and I'm gonna split that
• 1:26:21
  Speaker 2: half nipple between Paul Giamatti, Oh My movie and Harry
• 1:26:29
  Speaker 2: Sheer who's in the movie?
• 1:26:31
  Speaker 3: I was, yeah, I was watching this with Grant there.
• 1:26:34
  Speaker 3: I said it, who I know?
• 1:26:38
  Speaker 2: Do you have a boyfriend?
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 3: I know?
• 1:26:40
  Speaker 2: Oh my gosh, it's bad.
• 1:26:42
  Speaker 3: It's bad. He's great, But yeah, it was we were
• 1:26:46
  Speaker 3: both having a bad time, and the moment Paul Giamatti
• 1:26:50
  Speaker 3: was on screen for less than a minute, it was
• 1:26:52
  Speaker 3: like Grant took an audible sigh of relief. He was like, oh.
• 1:26:56
  Speaker 3: I was like, oh, do you feel safe? Like he
• 1:26:57
  Speaker 3: seemed to suddenly feel safe. But it is a movie
• 1:27:02
  Speaker 3: that really made us both But like, I don't know,
• 1:27:05
  Speaker 3: it's a movie that makes you feel hostage in the
• 1:27:08
  Speaker 3: present day. So I'm also going to give it half
• 1:27:11
  Speaker 3: a nipple. I appreciate the attempt and understanding a little more.
• 1:27:15
  Speaker 3: I really appreciated the essay by Scott Maslow that sort
• 1:27:19
  Speaker 3: of detailed what the attempt was. I just think, again,
• 1:27:24
  Speaker 3: having women in the room does not guarantee you're going
• 1:27:27
  Speaker 3: to get a better script, because people are people. But
• 1:27:30
  Speaker 3: I cannot imagine a world where the script would have
• 1:27:33
  Speaker 3: gotten worse with more women in the room, because I
• 1:27:36
  Speaker 3: think you're right, like, the subversive elements are interesting, but
• 1:27:39
  Speaker 3: they still ultimately fall victim to very gender tropes, which
• 1:27:43
  Speaker 3: is that we are willing to inquire one character's villainy
• 1:27:47
  Speaker 3: and not another's, and that just the whole movie unravels.
• 1:27:51
  Speaker 3: The way Kimmy has written, I think is just like
• 1:27:53
  Speaker 3: bad and does not like sells the character and the
• 1:27:57
  Speaker 3: performance short. I don't even like Cameron Diaz as an actor,
• 1:28:00
  Speaker 3: but I felt bad for her having to play this character.
• 1:28:03
  Speaker 3: And Julia Roberts I do like as an actor, so
• 1:28:05
  Speaker 3: I felt really bad for her having to play this character.
• 1:28:08
  Speaker 3: And you know, Dermott mulroney as we you know, he's crying.
• 1:28:11
  Speaker 3: We can't. I can't say another bad thing about him.
• 1:28:14
  Speaker 2: Yes, I'm sorry dermltlrmalt uh.
• 1:28:20
  Speaker 3: And again like if this is a movie you ride for,
• 1:28:22
  Speaker 3: it's a movie you ride for. I ride for a
• 1:28:24
  Speaker 3: lot of movies that don't hold up. But yeah, So
• 1:28:28
  Speaker 3: I'm going to give the half nipple at this movie
• 1:28:30
  Speaker 3: to Julia Roberts because I like her, and also I
• 1:28:36
  Speaker 3: like that it was definitely a creative risk for her
• 1:28:38
  Speaker 3: to take this part. She always played the uh you
• 1:28:42
  Speaker 3: know young Angenou who won at the end. I think
• 1:28:45
  Speaker 3: like her being willing to take this at the peak
• 1:28:48
  Speaker 3: of her career was a very cool choice. Reading about
• 1:28:51
  Speaker 3: the production you I learned that she was really committed
• 1:28:54
  Speaker 3: to like moments where she was being encouraged by the
• 1:28:58
  Speaker 3: director to seem more like she was like, no, what's
• 1:29:02
  Speaker 3: written on the page is like in the karaoke scene. Specifically,
• 1:29:06
  Speaker 3: I wish it was in the yelling scene. I would
• 1:29:08
  Speaker 3: be curious to know what she thought about that. But
• 1:29:09
  Speaker 3: like in the karaoke scene, I guess she was being
• 1:29:12
  Speaker 3: encouraged by I don't know if it's a director or producer,
• 1:29:15
  Speaker 3: someone on set with a lot of power who is like,
• 1:29:17
  Speaker 3: you should be on board with Kimmy singing by the end,
• 1:29:21
  Speaker 3: and she's like, no, that's not what my character would do.
• 1:29:23
  Speaker 3: My character hates her. My character is going to like
• 1:29:25
  Speaker 3: sit in like getting one up on her, and you know,
• 1:29:28
  Speaker 3: like she was just so game to play a villain.
• 1:29:30
  Speaker 3: And I really wish that the movie was written in
• 1:29:33
  Speaker 3: a way that would have made that a more rewarding experience,
• 1:29:37
  Speaker 3: because it's a good idea executed very poorly. So I'll
• 1:29:40
  Speaker 3: give my half nipple to Julia and that's all I
• 1:29:44
  Speaker 3: have to say.
• 1:29:45
  Speaker 2: Yeah, well, there you have it, folks. That's my best
• 1:29:49
  Speaker 2: friend's wedding. Hey, you want to follow us on Instagram,
• 1:29:55
  Speaker 2: Well you can.
• 1:29:57
  Speaker 3: Well do it.
• 1:30:00
  Speaker 2: And more importantly, subscribe to our Matreon, where you get
• 1:30:05
  Speaker 2: two bonus episodes every month for five dollars a month,
• 1:30:08
  Speaker 2: and it's always on some brilliant, amazing genius theme that
• 1:30:14
  Speaker 2: Jamie and I cook up. Plus you get access to
• 1:30:17
  Speaker 2: the entire back catalog of bonus episodes and that can
• 1:30:20
  Speaker 2: be found at patreon dot com slash back to cast woo.
• 1:30:26
  Speaker 3: And also you can get our merch at teapupic dot
• 1:30:29
  Speaker 3: com slash the Bechdel Cast and we'll see it's the
• 1:30:35
  Speaker 3: end of summer. Summer is waning, summer is gone, and
• 1:30:39
  Speaker 3: now it's time to go back to school. And oh yeah,
• 1:30:44
  Speaker 3: that's right. No, that's more you because you, I know
• 1:30:47
  Speaker 3: you don't like to forget up, but you love to
• 1:30:48
  Speaker 3: go back to school because my.
• 1:30:50
  Speaker 2: Gosh, yeah, are you referring to back to school?
• 1:30:53
  Speaker 3: Is your favorite? You love back to school? You couldn't stop.
• 1:30:58
  Speaker 2: I love well. Also because I teach school at Caitlin University,
• 1:31:05
  Speaker 2: It's true where I teach my screenwriting classes and I
• 1:31:09
  Speaker 2: actually have a few classes starting up in September. Because
• 1:31:14
  Speaker 2: she is back to schochool exactly, So if anyone's interested
• 1:31:19
  Speaker 2: in those, you can go to my website Caitlindurante dot
• 1:31:23
  Speaker 2: com slash classes. I have an intro class, so if
• 1:31:27
  Speaker 2: you're brand new to screenwriting or you need a refresher
• 1:31:30
  Speaker 2: or anything like that, you can take that class. And
• 1:31:32
  Speaker 2: then I also have workshopping classes for people who are
• 1:31:36
  Speaker 2: in the process of writing something and you want feedback
• 1:31:40
  Speaker 2: on your materials. So, wow, back to school. What's happening?
• 1:31:45
  Speaker 3: And this has nothing to do with school, but listen
• 1:31:47
  Speaker 3: to my other podcast, sixteenth Minute of Fame as well. Yes,
• 1:31:52
  Speaker 3: it is so hard to make, so please listen to it.
• 1:31:57
  Speaker 3: All right, shall we go to I mean, it's kind
• 1:32:01
  Speaker 3: of our thing. Let's go to a wedding with our friend.
• 1:32:06
  Speaker 3: So many wedding style I know, it really is. We're
• 1:32:09
  Speaker 3: each other's go to deal with it, and that's a
• 1:32:13
  Speaker 3: true best friend's wedding. Bye bye.
• 1:32:19
  Speaker 2: The Bechdel Cast is a production of iHeartMedia, hosted by
• 1:32:22
  Speaker 2: Caitlin Derante and Jamie loftis produced by Sophie Lichterman, edited
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  Speaker 2: by Mola Board. Our theme song was composed by Mike
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  Speaker 2: Kaplan with vocals by Catherine Volskrosenski. Our logo in Merch
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  Speaker 2: is designed by Jamie Loftis and a special thanks to
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  Speaker 2: Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit
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  Speaker 2: linktree slash Bechdel Cast