Similar to Brutal Bridesmaids....but better....the villain is in love with the groom and is determined to destroy the bride. I wrote this review as I watched....
1. The villain is known upfront which doesn't leave Lifetime room to ruin it w/the captions as in Brutal Bridesmaids lol. In that one, the villain was similar in that she knew the groom first. But in that movie, that villain ( the captions give it away so IDK why I'm avoiding spoilers) and the groom interacted in the movie once. Here, at least, the villain works w/the groom and he's in the movie quite a lot, so they get a lot of face time which lends credence to her obsession with him.
2. The movie wasted no time. Catherine is a terrible friend. Dana (I think) was so much more empathetic and friend-like. Catherine is actually very inappropriate given that her "friend" just had her relationship implode. Although as the movie progresses, it seems like they are only friends through the groom, so it's not so surprising anymore that she's barely affected by what Lindsay is going through
3. I like that the bride, Lindsay, (and apparently her one good friend) are actively trying to track the guy down. She's not feeling sorry for herself to the point where she's not trying to figure out what happened. She is a good sleuth.
4. The villain doing the classic talking to herself is cheesy, and it might be happening too much. If you read my reviews, you'd see I am against unnecessary deaths (yes, on Lifetime, stop laughing), but the first death was believable. It was impulsive, but showed her mindset. I mean, now she's a murderer instead of just a trash friend, but it was clearly the act of a person obsessed who didn't want to get caught. She's also showing jealousy of the woman dear old MIL wants her son with after the breakup, so the actress is doing a decent job of portraying those classic nutty characteristics. I'm really hoping now that things are progressing that she doesn't pick up more victims. Im glad she's not an annoying psycho like in Psycho Seamstress.
5. The plot points that keep the "mystery" going aren't too bad, although they're all obviously in place to stall the plot until the right moment. One of them is really forced but I'm still watching.
6. I like that Dana (the real friend) didn't do the usual thing and confront the villain without first telling what she knows. We know that rarely ends well and as I'm watching, it still might not. Lindsay chastised her for it, so maybe Dana's still gonna fall into the bff dies trope. L said that she only wanted to keep things chill w/Catherine bc of the link to Brandon. So it's understandable she would be upset. But if the next scene where she is so obviously set up by Catherine doesn't make her see Dana is right, the movie will have its first typical Lifetime naive protag moment. It's just too blatant for her not to realize. Her eventual lightbulb moment was well done.
7. As we build to the climax, some of the Lifetime predictable tropes start appearing and I am annoyed. It's not ruining the movie, but we were doing so well avoiding them.
8. The second victim was absolutely unnecessary, but showed Catherine got cocky. I am glad the script didn't kill more people. After the second killing, the movie started drifting into typical territory so I was expecting it.
9. Wow, ok, so the climax is not as expected. The ending is abrupt, so maybe the budget didn't allow for much near the end. Then again, as I said, Catherine got cocky so perhaps it's not such a surprise how it played out. It's funny how we're conditioned to expect certain things to happen in Lifetime flicks, but at the same time, this movie did not need a climax action fight.
I didn't expect much bc as frequently as Lifetime churns them out, you run into a majority of duds. But The Perfect Wedding and My Husband's Killer Girlfriend are two of the better ones so far in 2021. MHKG is an overall tighter script. Both movies are served well by dialogue that's way more direct than usual and neither movie has a moron for a protagonist. Decent pacing and a believable plot. Nothing too far-fetched.
Some of the acting is a bit stiff and Lindsay's actress tries to add emotion. It's 50/50 cringe, but mostly successful. Catherine wasn't a cartoon in spite of talking to herself and the lurking around corners. I will say that her backstory didn't really draw a straight line from the past to the present. The sister character's actress used to be in Lifetime movies all the time.
This is clearly a C-19 movie and it sort of shows. It's not distracting, just obvious. For example we see Brandon's best man and presumed best friend twice in the movie. Within the first 20 minutes. He says he's here for B and yet is never seen again. Therefore Brandon had no one to talk to or have his back. His overbearing mother doesn't count. The movie could have at least staged some calls or texts to give Brandon a connection. Also, the movie says the name "Brandon" so many times compared to every other name.
To that point, Brandon was absolutely no prize. Granted, the scene he walked in on made Lindsay look guilty, but the guy totally flipped on her. He didn't want to hear her out pretty much the entire movie, until the magic moment where the script required him to get it. Maybe it was the actor (or the direction). A nice change of pace for this type of movie would have been him actually realizing Catherine was hitting on him and maybe playing out in his mind her potential involvement in everything that happened i.e. The photos, the coffee maker, etc. Bro was an idiot, and the only thing that saved him was that he never actually pursued anything with Crazy Cathy or poor Brooke.
I don't know if the title fits the actual storyline, but I would probably watch it again. I do think that the movie took too long for Lindsay to discover that it was Catherine all along, particularly since Dana (the mvp of the movie) planted the seed about how off Catherine's behavior was. She should have been suspicious the moment C suggested showing Brandon her camera photos. And as I said before, she was so clearly not the same type of friend as Dana. How did Lindsay not notice she wanted Brandon?
Not that it matters, but I also hope that their "perfect wedding" happened after some couples counseling. Even though they were set up, their relationship was destroyed, so I don't think it's as simple as calling the wedding back on.