If it’s a Kate Hudson movie, there’s a good chance it’s going to be shallow, retard-formulaic and repulsively chick-flicky. (As I explained in a 9.22 piece called “Lady Has No Taste.”) Make that an excellent chance. I’m sorry but that’s the bed she’s made. So the uh-oh vibe that emanates from the trailer for Bride Wars (Fox 2000, 1.9.09), her latest, is no surprise.

This, clearly, is just what the world needs now — a glossy girly-girl catfight comedy about duelling weddings at the Plaza condo-mart. The bottom has truly fallen out of empty subject matter for the under-30 female movie market. As a species they have no soul, nothing inside of any substance, nothing that looks inward or beyond the ADD ego-cravings of the moment.
Worse, Bride Wars has Candace Bergen playing the wedding planner. Good God.
The director is Gary Winick, the indie-world director-producer whose winning, nicely written Tadpole was the toast of Sundance ’02. By the Tadpole standard, Bride Wars — or the movie that the trailer seems to be selling — appears to be a straight hold-your-nose paycheck gig for the poor guy. Down in the saltmines with a hard hat and a pick-axe. I suppose we all have to bend over from time to time so we can make our accountants happy.
And what’s with Bride Wars costar Anne Hathaway making three wedding movies in a compressed time span — Rachel Getting Married, Bride Wars and The Fiance? As MTV.com’s Elizabeth Rappe wrote this morning, “If I was in the gossip magazines every other week thanks to my (possibly) criminal ex-boyfriend, I would run as far away from romantic comedy scripts as I could. But she’s boldly signing on to anything involving the highs and lows of romance. Maybe it’s her form of therapy.”