“Bride Wars” Every now and then you want a silly, stupid chick flick. And that’s what this is. Yes, a semester’s worth of women’s studies courses could be devoted to identifying and dissecting all of the horrific stereotypes perpetrated in “Bride Wars,” directed by Gary Winick (“13 Going on 30”). But if you’re an intelligent woman, who can separate fiction from reality, and you have a purpose or goal in life far greater than throwing the ultimate wedding, then you can take “Bride Wars” for what it is — an hour and a half of sometimes amusing, sometimes entertaining situations that revolve around the ugly wedding industry and best friends whose wedding planner’s assistant accidentally books their dream weddings on the same day at the same venue.
Neither wants to have a double wedding — “What am I, a 40-year-old twin?” Kate Hudson’s character quips. So the competition and sabotaging begins. Hudson, as lawyer Liv who always gets her way, and Anne Hathaway, as Emma the pushover schoolteacher, play their parts well enough. But skeletal-looking Kristen Johnston as Emma’s manipulative, self-absorbed co-worker and last-minute maid of honor steals several scenes. Candice Bergen as Marion St. Clair — “Manhattan’s most sought-after wedding planner” — narrates the flick but does her best work when she forsakes narrator duties to appear on-screen in her office. “You have been dead until now,” she pronounces to recently engaged Emma and Liv in the midst of their bridal bliss. Unfortunately, the big day comes, but the big payoff doesn’t.
