A food critic realizes she is in love with her best friend just as he is about to get married, prompting a desperate, four-day campaign of sabotage.
Julianne Potter (Julia Roberts) is a successful food critic whose life is thrown into turmoil when her lifelong friend Michael O’Neal (Dermot Mulroney) announces his impending marriage to the wealthy and vivacious Kimmy Wallace (Cameron Diaz). Struck by the sudden realization that she is in love with him, Julianne flies to Chicago with only four days to stop the wedding. She enlists her editor and confidant George (Rupert Everett) to pose as her fiancé in a bid to make Michael jealous. Julianne’s increasingly frantic schemes to split the happy couple consistently backfire, exposing her own vulnerabilities and causing pain to the entirely blameless Kimmy. Overwhelmed by guilt, she must then scramble to repair the damage she has caused.
This film marked a significant career resurgence for Julia Roberts and became a defining romantic comedy of its decade. Director P.J. Hogan’s script, written by Ronald Bass, cleverly subverts genre conventions by making the protagonist an unsympathetic schemer, a choice that generates surprising audience support for her rival. The film’s structure also provides a triumphant role for Rupert Everett as the loyal and scene-stealing gay friend, whose sharp one-liners ground the escalating chaos. A global box office success, the movie’s appeal lay in its energetic script and its skillful balance of farce and genuine emotion, creating a picture that both adheres to and intelligently questions the romantic comedy formula.
Production Co: TriStar Pictures / 105 mins / 1997
Director: P.J. Hogan
Screenplay: Ronald Bass
Main Cast: Julia Roberts (Julianne Potter), Dermot Mulroney (Michael O’Neal), Cameron Diaz (Kimberly Wallace), Rupert Everett (George Downes), Philip Bosco (Walter Wallace), M. Emmet Walsh (Joe O’Neal), Rachel Griffiths (Samantha Newhouse), Susan Sullivan (Isabelle Wallace)
