I Sat Through That? #20 - Six Minutes of Runaway Bride

In which Gerry Hayes falls in love with Roberts and Gere all over again, just like it says on the poster...

Runaway Bride, 1999.

Directed by Garry Marshall.
Starring Julia Roberts, Richard Gere, Joan Cusack, probably others - I didn’t really see.
Written by Josaan McGibbon and Sara Parriott.

You read that title correctly. After whinging and bellyaching, last week, about Peter Jackson stealing (I don’t use that word lightly) hours, days, weeks of my life with his interminable pish, this week’s I Sat Through That? concerns approximately six minutes of a film. During the week, while flicking up and down the channels desperately trying to find something, anything, worth watching, I had the good fortune to land on the dénouement of Runaway Bride. I say “good fortune” because, within the time it took my finger to cease it’s unrelenting, channel-hopping presses, I knew that I had this week’s column all sorted out.

I watched about six minutes of Runaway Bride.

That was enough - much more than enough - to make it worthy of my complaining about sitting through it (and don’t get all smartarsed, saying “oh, but you could have turned it off” - nobody likes a smartarse - take it from me).

I had a quick look on the net to research it - I’m nothing if not diligent - and by an extraordinary measure of good luck, I found the end of Runaway Bride on YouTube. You can look at it here or on the player below. Honestly, I’m not making this up - this is almost exactly where I came in.

Obviously, if you haven’t seen the film and don’t want to see - or hear about - the last six minutes because you really, really hope to see it in the future, you should probably go away. Not because I’m worried about spoiling it for you - you should just go away.

I came in as Roberts and Gere were having one of those ‘serious conversations’ out on the most fake-looking balcony I’ve ever seen. Honestly, there are school productions of Romeo and Juliet with more convincing balconies and there are daytime soap-operas made with a budget less than the cost of a cup of tea and a bacon sandwich that have more realistic and natural lighting.

So Roberts (who should never wear a turtle-neck - her head and neck appear to be all part of the same long, weird protrusion), gives Gere a stinking pair of running shoes. ‘Cos she’s the runaway bride. Get it. It’s symbolic n’ stuff. At least I think it is - I missed the start you see.

Then she proposes in a sickening, candied, Hollywood manner (listen to where the violins come in on “I guarantee we’ll have tough times”). He puts on some mellow jazz on his (of course) retro sound system like a giant, grey-haired cliché and they dance.

Nauseating, right?

Right. But I could have forgiven it (just), if not for what followed. An achingly awful wedding scene on top of a frickin’ hill with autumn leaves all around. Please. Stomach-churning.

But wait. They’re not done making me sick. The music reaches a crescendo and... What’s that? Why, it’s all their friends running up the hill towards them, clapping and cheering as they come. There goes that delicious Thai curry I had for dinner.

As they ride off on horses (maybe it makes sense if you’ve seen the rest of the film), Joan Cusack, signals the end credits by screaming annoyingly into a phone and a montage of execrable, cringeworthy scenes of staggering odiousness follows...

Gape, dumbstruck, at a choir spontaneously bursting into a chorus of Hallelujahs as they hear the news. Wonder at the baker-woman throwing flour in the air and marching inanely. Rub your eyes to make sure you’ve really seen the priest and nuns running joyously across a field. Cower, repeating “no, no, they wouldn’t...” as you watch the quirky granny running/knitting because you know - you just know - they’ll have her turn and follow that hunky looking bloke. Wish, wish harder than you’ve ever wished, that you could be close enough to that bloke with the guitar to punch him in the conk.

Six minutes.

More traumatic and damaging than anything Peter Jackson has done. Peter, all is forgiven - I’ll even go and watch your two-and-a-half day director’s cut of The Hobbit when it’s out.

Six minutes of Runaway Bride...


Read more I Sat Through That? right here.

Gerry Hayes is a garret-dwelling writer subsisting on tea, beer and Flame-Grilled Steak flavour McCoy’s crisps. You can read about other stuff he doesn't like on his blog at http://stareintospace.com or you can have easy, bite-sized bits of him at http://twitter.com/gerryhayes