Cut to Julianne Potter, played with patented sunniness by Julia Roberts. Ms. Roberts dazzles on cue by flashing those teeth, tossing that hair and turning on the floodlights of that smile, all of this winning through sheer force of star personality. Watching her beam is a lot more fun than sitting through the film's bad karaoke episode.
Julianne is a food critic, and that is supposed to be a metaphor. She behaves as imperiously about men as she does about food. She tastes life but doesn't truly digest it. And when she gets into a romantic rivalry with another woman, she can equate one of them with creme brulee and the other with Jell-O. Julianne is dining with George (Rupert Everett), her Hugh Grantish editor, in that first scene, and he seems like a minor character. But George winds up stealing what there is of the movie, perhaps because, as Julianne's gay friend who gets to comment archly on the action, he's the only perceptive character here. The three other principals behave so fatuously that the audience remains five steps ahead of the plot all the time.
The audience is also free to notice malicious undercurrents that this bubbly comedy cheerfully ignores. When Julianne is summoned to Chicago by her current pal and old flame, Michael O'Neal (Dermot Mulroney), to witness his impending marriage, she schemes to break up the match. She is helped by the fact that Kimmy (Cameron Diaz), Michael's fiancee, is seemingly oblivious, and that Ronald Bass's screenplay barely has a believable moment when it's not dealing with George.
The screenplay also mistakes chatter for color, as when Kimmy explains her reason for asking Julianne, a total stranger, to be her maid of honor: ''My best friend shattered her pelvis line dancing in Abilene over spring break.''
With Michael dashing but dim and Kimmy a hopeless birdbrain, the emphasis is on Julianne's dirty tricks. Vamping the audience while she makes her play for Michael, Ms. Roberts happens to get caught in her underwear, happens to make Kimmy look foolish and happens to wind up alone with Michael on a scenic tour boat. The flirtation finds an interesting note of ambiguity in Julianne's striding through the film in pantsuits and referring to herself as Michael's ''unofficial best man.''
Things pick up when Mr. Everett, who hasn't before had a role this buoyantly showy, arrives in town to console Julianne about her suffering. (''The misery! The exquisite tragedy! The Susan Hayward of it all!'') His George is soon roped into passing himself off as Julianne's heterosexual fiance, with predictably giddy results. But this is a lot wittier than watching everyone in a restaurant, including waitresses waving lobster mitts, joining forces for a not-so- spontaneous chorus of ''I Say a Little Prayer for You.'' Eventually the film resolves itself on a satisfying note, with Ms. Roberts glowing in her warmest scene. It's just right for the film, and it offers a nice new take on happily ever after.
''My Best Friend's Wedding'' is rated PG-13 (Parents strongly cautioned). It includes profanity and sexual references.MY BEST FRIEND'S WEDDING
Directed by P. J. Hogan; written by Ronald Bass; director of photography, Laszlo Kovacs; edited by Garth Craven and Lisa Fruchtman; music by James Newton Howard; production designer, Richard Sylbert; produced by Jerry Zucker and Mr. Bass; released by Tri-Star Pictures. Running time: 112 minutes. This film is rated PG-13.
WITH: Julia Roberts (Julianne Potter), Dermot Mulroney (Michael O'Neal), Cameron Diaz (Kimmy Wallace) and Rupert Everett (George Downes).
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