Don't let Julia Roberts keep you from seeing this film: I didn't, and my throw-reservations-to-the-wind attitude was well repaid with laughs. Not that I have Roberts to thank.

Rupert Everett steals the show as the best friend of Jules Potter (Julia Roberts), a woman out to steal back her former lover who's on the brink of marrying a toothsome college girl, Kimmy (Cameron Diaz).

Dermot Mulroney as the soon-to-be-wed Michael caught between two women is outshone by the far more charming Rupert Everett, Jules' gay friend George, who becomes her co-conspirator in the plot to foil Michael's wedding to Kimmy. Everett turns in a hilarious performance as the trouble-making pal who comes through emotionally, if not sexually, for the distraught Jules.

In fact there's no sex in this movie, and it turns out to be, rather surprisingly, as much an affirmation of friendship as it is the more usual proliferation of love-triangle antics. Another departure from the usual is the casting of Roberts in a less-than-admirable role: Jules is a bit of a skunk, which is as fun to watch as it must have been for her to play.

"My Best Friends Wedding" thwarts some of the common expectations of romantic comedies, and comes through with an ending that doesn't leave you rolling your eyes.