Bride Wars

2009.   Kate Hudson & Anne Hathaway   c. 85 mins   28 scenes

On its face, simple enough story about two neighbor girls from New Jersey, friends for life so far, who fall out in competitive wedding mode, but are reconciled when they find fighting is dumb. One blonde, one brunette is one distinguishing feature. The other is that one's a successful lawyer—money-making— with a 'stylish wardrobe' and the other teaches and wants the best in life ... for everyone else, as the cover notes put it.

Those people skilled in identifying money streams for movies could predict how the balance works, subsidies and hidden incomes and remuneration. I'm not one of those—if they exist—and will just note a few guesses.

Diamonds and gems generally look to me rather like coloured glass, but nobody is allowed to say that. This may be a contribution of Africa to the world. Certainly Japan had no such tradition, but may be in the process of acquiring a fake tradition. Inevitably our actresses say "Gee, it's real beautiful" , in this case Tiffany's getting the attention.
      The marriage ceremony site and the whole bridal magazine complex is the my next consideration. Being Jewish, there's no planning for weddings in church. But they both choose a hotel, one where their parents (I think) were married a number of years back. Here we have the primacy of th Plaza Hotel. I checked it was still there, in an architectural style vaguely suggesting a 19th-century cotton mill, or warehouse. I have no idea to what extent this was product placement. There are lots of hotels in New York and lots of visitors; competition may be fiercer than I'd guessed.
      Wedding dresses are also part of the scene-setting in the movie. They pushed Vera Wang; perhaps it was part of a big promotion. I don't know, but imagine in thousands of years in the future something similar will occur, if cities and life survive. In the Special Features, there's only one deleted scene, The Perfect White Dress, which is solely an ad for Vera Wang's chic, sophisticated, elegant &c wedding dresses. For some reason the link foxinternational.com cannot be reached.
      And we have wedding planners. I found websites with a few dozen of these, all heavy with white flowers bought wholesale. The movie made up their own; Marianne StClaire or something like that. I suppose the real elite have their own planners, their own rituals, and their own family banks.
      I feel a certain agonised sympathy for brides and their hubbies subjected to these pressures. Just me, I expect. Men may feel the best day of their lives was paying off the mortgage; women may feel the same about their marriage.
      Even the bridal chorus has its associated difficulties. Wagner (from Lohengrin) has been partly stolen by Mendelssohn.

Bride Wars has flickers of Jewish schemes here and there. After the wedding dress fight scene, the two women decide fighting is "dumb". One says "I'm awake!" in prevision of the 'woke' campaign. There's a same sex marriage scene, previewing another Jewish scheme.

The ending has both pregnant and due on the same day. I expect there was intense debate on that.

My feelings on this movie weren't very positive, but I did take away an impression on the longevity and intensity of DNA and its origins and results, and the astounding fact that human beings, with their malleability and flux and sillinesses, despite assaults and debilitating attacks, have the robustness go on, seemingly forever. So thanks, girls.

Rae West 4 Feb 2023