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STUDIO: Warner Home Video
MSRP: $19.98
RATED: NR
RUNNING TIME: 90 Minutes
SPECIAL FEATURES:
• Additional scenes
• “A Look at Confessions of an American Bride” featurette
The Pitch
“Let’s get an actress known only for her breasts and throw her into a plot that forces her to choose between two generic male leads that are practically identical to each other! Also let’s have her continually break the fourth wall in Ferris Bueller style even though she has no charisma whatsoever.”
The Humans
Shannon Elizabeth (or a plank of wood, I really can’t be quite sure), Eddie McClintock and Geoff Stults, who may or may not be genetic clones of each other.
The Nutshell
Samantha (Elizabeth) is an advertising executive who has dreamed about her wedding day since she was a little kid. She meets a man who seems to be everything she could want in a husband and soon the two are engaged. She plunges headfirst into the wedding planning and wackiness ensues as she partakes in such wild and zany activities as finding the right wedding dress. You know, the type of stuff that has been done in every single insipid wedding movie since the dawn of time immemorial. She unexpectedly runs into an old college crush and, GASP, kisses him! Will this scandalous affair destroy her future marriage or will she come to her senses?
Although she loved her husband, secretly she still longed for Jack Frost and his carrot.
The Package
A blue banner that proudly proclaims that this feature is a “Lifetime Original Movie” is emblazoned at the top of the DVD artwork. This bar serves a dual purpose as a homing beacon for women with shitty taste in movies to hone in on, as well as a caution sign for men to stay far away. The two mirror image manly men stare at Shannon Elizabeth from opposite sides, daring her to choose between the square jawed man with a winning smile and the other square jawed man with a winning smile.
This release continues the WB’s trend with some of their lesser catalogue titles (and believe me, this is certainly one of them) by housing the disc in a clear case. The chapter listings are printed on the back of the DVD cover artwork and are able to be viewed through the clear case once you open it. It’s kind of a cheap maneuver, but it really does provide for some nice inside artwork sometimes. In this case, the inside artwork is a gigantic spoiler that gives away the main character’s final decision.
The extras are the same as on the other Lifetime movie DVDs, a featurette with the cast and crew and scenes that were so bad that they didn’t even make it into a horrible film like this one. I would rather watch a featurette with the director of this film, preferably liquored up and angry at a world that has condemned him to make this type of trash.
They say that you should do what you’re best at, and the director was good at kissing scenes and little else.
The Lowdown
I don’t think all Lifetime movies are horrible. Most of them are certainly bad, but a lot of them are still enjoyable in some perverse way. The fun of the old school Lifetime flicks comes in trying to predict how the woman will be wronged and how she will triumph over her oppressors in the end. These films also starred beloved sitcom stars of the ’70s and ’80s who were out of work and willing to be in anything. This new generation of Lifetime flicks just isn’t cutting it.
Confessions of an American Bride tries really hard to be tongue in cheek and witty. The main character frequently talks to the audience and moves the plot along in imaginary sequences. I suppose this could work, if not for the fact that Shannon Elizabeth is an extremely wooden actress and definitely one of the last people I would cast in a film if it required a voice over monologue throughout its entirety. You’d think someone who had been married herself would be able to inject some emotion into the character.
The complete failure of these fourth wall breaking interludes turns what would normally be a bad film into a gauntlet of horror. It’s the film that challenges you to grit your teeth and weather an assault of shitty jokes and a cookie cutter plot. And when you get to the end, instead of a nice ribbon or a medal you get a kick in the crotch and a painful reminder that it was all a complete waste of time and the ending was never in doubt.