My Best Friend's Wedding

SmokeScreeners Rating:  

Year of Release: 1997

MPAA Rating: PG-13

Director: P.J. Hogan

Distributor: TriStar Pictures

This film was reviewed by Dr. Barry Hummel of QDREF on June 29, 2013

Additional Comments:  "The star of the movie, Julia Roberts, accounts for one-third of the smoking scenes in this film. 

I want to focus on one particular scene that highlights all of the problems with allowing tobacco marketing to penetrate into popular films. Late in the movie, as Julia Robert's plan to disrupt her friend's wedding begins to fall apart, she slumps outside of her hotel room door and desperately rummages through her bag to locate a pack of Marlboro's.  That is problem one; we are dealing with an obvious scene of product placement.  While that practice supposedly ended with the 1998 Master Settlement Agreement, the fact that I can still see the built in commercial for Marlboro in 2013 shows the power of the practice of product placement.

Looking deeper into the scene will reveal why I consider this to be an actual commercial.  First, as this high profile movie star starts to smoke, a bellhop (Paul Giamatti) approaches to remind her that she is on a smoke-free floor.  Roberts proceeds to make a sarcastic speech about what a criminal she is, making the case that what she is doing is, in fact, a totally normal behavior.  Then, she asks the bellhop if he smokes.  He tells her that he does, and Roberts actually convinces him to take a drag on the cigarette, breaking the rules of his employer.  This act of defiance becomes a small celebration, a stick it to the man moment that glorifies the act of breaking smoke-free rules.

This is one of the many themes present in modern tobacco advertising.  One only has to look at the wave of ads for e-cigarettes to see the defiance that flies in the face of rules to limit the use of a recreational drug in public places.

Roberts smokes throughout the movie; I have no doubt that Marlboro asked to have their product displayed in this scene because of the messaging built into the dialogue.  Given documents available on Marlboro product placement in the past, the marketing department from Philip Morris may have even written the scene... a scene that lives forever on DVD and Blu-Ray."