Review: Bride Wars

Megan Seling pretty much sums up the basic plot of Bride Wars. However, I'll mention two points. First, I found the film to be at least passably entertaining (an admittedly low bar). Second, and more importantly, I must comment on one of the insidious messages of the movie. The lesson of fetishing a wedding, of materialism, of unreasonable expectations, of settling, etc are clear and have all kinds of relationships with our modern culture. However, there is a key point that is missing in Seling's review--the scene where the rich lawyer character (played by Kate Hudson) basically gets fired from her job. One message delivered by this segment is that a woman can play in the boy's club (here, high powered corporate law), as long as she doesn't act womanly (or at least conform to the gender stereotype). Perhaps I'm reading too much into this, but this is really the only part of this consumer-fest movie that bothered me. And I think it's message is even more insidious given the lack of play it has received in other reviews plus the fact that the person I saw the movie with didn't even register the social commentary of what was going on here until I pointed it out to her.