I was delighted today to discover, as one often does on a weekend afternoon, that one of my favorite movies was on basic cable.  TBS was airing My Best Friend’s Wedding.  I adore this movie, but I hadn’t seen it in a while.  At least not all the way through.  And man, is it good.  And it’s so much more interesting to watch now.  In the first scene of the movie it comes out that Julia Roberts, beautiful, successful, no longer a hooker, is 27 going on 28.  Wha?  That’s how old I am.  Weird.  So much different watching this movie from that perspective than as an eighth grader, when it came out. 

One of the other cool things about watching My Best Friend’s Wedding now is seeing all the people in it who are pretty famous now.  Dermot Mulroney and Cameron Diaz had both been in movies before, but here they were, front and center, sharing the spotlight with Julia Roberts.  I go back and forth with liking Cameron, but this is one of my favorite performances.  This, Charlie’s Angels, and The Sweetest Thing.  Amazing.  Stick to comedy Cam; it works for you.  We also get glimpse of Rachel Griffiths as one of the southern bridesmaids…the one who gets her tongue stuck to an ice sculpture of The David.  Yep.  Oh, romantic comedies, giving future Oscar nominated actors their classy big breaks.

Of course, you can’t talk about My Best Friend’s Wedding without mentioning musical sequences!  I had actually forgotten about the delightful opening sequence.  It’s so sugary sweet and campy, I love it!  Two tidbits about this sequence: Something only I would notice, one of the bridesmaids is the bride J.Lo has to talk down at the beginning of The Wedding Planner.  And, I performed this version of the song when I went to Show Choir camp after freshman year of high school.  Amazing.  Then there’s Say A Little Prayer.  This is the kind of scene that people say only happens in movies.  But save the guy jumping on the piano, I’d have to disagree.  Spontaneous sing-a-longs happen often in my life.  That could just be me and the people I hang out with, but others join in, I swear.  You just need a spark.  Anyway, enjoy:

The thing that stuck out to me the most watching this, however, was Julia and Rupert.  In 1997, the term “fag hag” meant nothing to me and probably would have been taken as an insult.  The same could be said about mainstream America.  Then, this movie was a big hit.  The next year, Will and Grace was on the air.  In My Best Friend’s Wedding, we saw America’s sweetheart (also an amazing movie she would later make), Julia Roberts, getting TURNED DOWN!  But fear not, her loving, supportive, gay best friend would be there to pick her up and make her see this wasn’t the end.  I’m sure I had some kind of reaction when I first saw this movie, but watching it now, I was in tears at the end.  And not because she didn’t get the guy.  Because Rupert came to her when she needed him and because I have that amazing relationship.  And like Rupert says at the end, “Maybe there won’t be marriage; maybe there won’t be sex, but by God, there’ll be dancing.”  And sometimes, you just need to dance.