My best friend’s wedding

1. Read the text about the film. My best friend’s wedding

My Best Friend's Wedding is a 1997 romantic comedy film directed by P. J. Hogan. It stars Julia Roberts, Cameron Diaz, Dermot Mulroney, Rupert Everett and Rachel Griffiths.

The film was a commercial and critical success. The song "I Say a Little Prayer (For You)" was covered by singer Diana King and featured heavily in the picture, making it a Billboard top 20 hit. The soundtrack featured a number of Burt Bacharach/Hal David songs.

The film is centered on the character Julianne Potter (Roberts), a 27 year-old New York restaurant critic who finds out that her long-time male friend Michael O'Neal (Mulroney) is getting married. The two previously made an agreement that they would marry each other when they turned 28 if they were still both not married, which privately Julianne (called "Jules") has been hoping would happen.

Julianne heads to Chicago intent on sabotaging Michael's wedding to the perky Kimberly 'Kimmy' Wallace (Diaz). Soon after Julianne's arrival in Chicago, and after Michael has introduced her to his fiancée Kimberly, Kimmy puts Jules on the spot, in the presence of Jules' best friend Michael, to be Kimmy's maid of honor. Jules consents, which establishes a comical Hyde/Jekyll scenario for her. She, on the one hand, has to appear to be true to the role of being Kimberly's dutiful maid of honor, while nevertheless secretly looking for any opportunity to sabotage the wedding. When other ploys by Julianne fail, she concocts her own fake engagement to her gay friend George (Rupert Everett) — a surprise not only to Michael, but also to George when he hears Jules announce their supposed engagement when the two men meet. Julianne's schemes are sometimes blatantly devious, even cruel; in one case, she manages to convince Michael that Kimberly is attempting to steer him into a career decision that he doesn't want to take.

After one scheme after another has failed, Julianne finally confesses to Michael that she is in love with him. It is truly not meant to be, and Michael marries Kimberly.

Two notable differences from most romantic comedies are that the heroine and hero do not end up together and that the main character is, by her own eventual tearful admission, the "bad guy." Fortunately, everyone is forgiven in the end, and Jules contentedly dances with George at the wedding reception of Kimmy and Michael.

2. Read the text and be ready to tell about the actress. Julia roberts

Julia Roberts (1967- ) is an American actor, whose performance in the motion picture Pretty Woman (1990) catapulted her to international stardom. Roberts was born in Smyrna, Georgia, to Walter and Betty Roberts, who ran an acting workshop. When her parents divorced in 1971, Julia and her sister, Lisa, stayed with their mother in Smyrna, while their older brother, Eric, went to live with Walter in Atlanta, Georgia.

After she graduated from high school, Roberts moved to New York City and began working as a model and actress. Eric, who had appeared in several movies, helped her land a few small film roles. Roberts’s first major part came in 1988, when she played Daisy in Mystic Pizza, about the lives and romances of three friends in Mystic, Connecticut. A year later, she was nominated for an Academy Award as best supporting actress for her part in Steel Magnolias (1989), a film about a group of Southern women.

Roberts became known internationally in 1990, when the movie Pretty Woman appeared. In the film Roberts plays Vivian, a prostitute who meets and falls in love with a hard-hearted businessman played by Richard Gere. The film was a box-office hit, and it earned Roberts an Academy Award nomination as best actress.

In the early and mid-1990s Roberts remained popular with movie audiences, but many of her films were not well received by critics. Her motion pictures during this time included Sleeping with the Enemy (1991), about a woman fleeing from an abusive husband; the legal thriller The Pelican Brief (1993); and I Love Trouble (1994), about two reporters who solve a mystery.

In the late 1990s Roberts starred in several romantic comedies that received better reviews from critics. In My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), she plays a woman who is not sure if she wants to break up the wedding of the man who is her best friend. Notting Hill (1999) features her as a world-famous actress who falls in love with a bookstore owner played by Hugh Grant. Runaway Bride (1999) reunites Roberts with Richard Gere in the story of a woman who repeatedly backs out of marriages right before the ceremony. In the drama Erin Brockovich (2000) Roberts plays a woman who works in a law firm and discovers a cover-up of an environmental problem. The role earned Roberts the Golden Globe Award for best dramatic actress and the Academy Award for best actress.