Great Film: Runaway Bride
You know what? Don't tell me anything about Pretty Woman, because I don't even want to hear it.
Runaway Bride is just a good romantic comedy. Yes, the director and the two
big name stars are the same as the film's 1990 counterpart, but even though
the two films have striking and almost offensive similarities, Runaway Bride
has a good enough story that I refuse to believe that it relied on the
success of its predecessor.
Julia Roberts is Maggie Carpenter, a hardware store owner (a laughable
profession surpassed only by Denise Richards as a nuclear weapons specialist
in The World Is Not Enough. Yeah RIGHT!), and Richard Gere is a newspaper
columnist (Ike Graham) who has been fired for printing a supposedly false
column about a woman who consistently runs out on her marriages. When he
travels to the tiny town where she lives to learn more about her life and
possibly get his job back, he finds that there is more to her than just a
newspaper column.
By the end of the film, there is such a huge media hype about Maggie's
wedding that it's a wonder that Ike wasn't honored for his 'false' column
about her. Joan Cusack has never looked and acted better than she did in
this movie, delivering a wonderful nasally performance that was strangely
heartwarming.
Runaway Bride had all kinds of wonderful scenes. I particularly liked the
wedding rehearsal scene. The look on Christopher Meloni's face was
priceless! There were so many good things about this film that I am able to
overlook the superficial look of unoriginality. If you just look past the
director and the two big names, the story itself is not at all like any
other film. There will, of course, be the inevitable cynical comparisons to
Pretty Woman, and these complaints are understandable, but people who
condemn Runaway Bride as a rip-off of Pretty Woman or some sort of re-make
are simply not looking at the film, but only at the names on the bill. This
is a very good romantic comedy, and it should not be missed simply because
of a superficial comparison to Pretty Woman.
Cast
- Peggy Flemming played by Joan Cusack
- Ike Graham played by Richard Gere
- Dead Head Gill Chavez played by Yul Vazquez
- Priest Brian Norris played by Donal Logue
- Maggie Carpenter played by Julia Roberts
- Walter Carpenter played by Paul Dooley
- Ellie Graham played by Rita Wilson
