Parents' Guide to

The Best Man

By S. Jhoanna Robledo, Common Sense Media Reviewer

age 16+

Entertaining romantic drama ponders commitment, fidelity.

Movie R 1999 121 minutes
The Best Man Poster Image

A Lot or a Little?

What you will—and won't—find in this movie.

Community Reviews

age 16+

Based on 1 parent review

age 16+

A couple of great performances, but...

A film framed with unrealistic wardrobes and settings and realistic dialogue. Rose petals in a bath at a moment's notice...really? Who's gonna clean that up? A lot of caricatures and a leading man whose immaturity made identifying with him very difficult. A few good lines and a great performance by Terrence Howard and the stunning Nia Long.

Is It Any Good?

Our review:
Parents say: (1):
Kids say: Not yet rated

Writer-director Malcolm D. Lee has put together a romantic comedy that feels real. Unlike so many cliched rom-coms, this one has a central conflict that doesn't seem contrived, and he lays the foundation with some early discussions about fidelity and double standards. Lance (Morris Chestnut), the groom, is a pro football star who regularly steps out on his fiance Mia, but won't even tolerate the idea that she's ever been with another guy. His attitude sets the stage for a third-act conflict when he discovers that Mia once shared a night with Harper.

Lee shows Lance struggling with this realization, agonizing about whether to go through with the wedding and how to deal with his feelings of betrayal, from his fiance and his friend. Chestnut makes this chauvinist into a real person, though with some outdated ideas of marriage. And Diggs' take on Harper reveals a man with a few issues of his own, including a fear of committment that's about to scuttle his own relationship. But they manage to learn from these flaws, in ways that feel painful and honest, and make the film stand out in sea of hokey romance flicks.

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