When a film genre begins to falter, it’s often the result of a string of box office disappointments. While various cultural factors can also play a role, nothing signals trouble quite like the public’s apparent lack of interest. This trend can be seen in the decline of mainstream romantic comedies: over a dozen were released theatrically in 2010, but by the decade’s end, that number had been cut in half. A turning point seems to have occurred around the start of the decade, coinciding with a particular event in January 2009 that rom-com enthusiasts might remember—the release of Bride Wars.

Bride Wars, featuring Kate Hudson and Anne Hathaway as lifelong friends turned rivals due to a wedding date mishap, was actually a modest success. With gross earnings of $58 million in the U.S. and over $100 million globally, it performed well, especially by today’s standards where such figures could easily top comedy charts. However, the film’s impact on the genre is questionable when compared to early 2010s flops like Killers, The Switch, and How Do You Know. Did Bride Wars really contribute to the decline?

Perhaps it did, in part. Despite its financial success, Bride Wars was critically panned, barely making it past the double digits on Rotten Tomatoes and receiving a lukewarm “C+” CinemaScore. The disappointment may have stemmed from high expectations, given its star-studded cast. At the time, Hathaway was already a familiar face from The Princess Diaries and The Devil Wears Prada, while Hudson was celebrated for her romantic comedy hits with Matthew McConaughey. The film seemed poised to be a blockbuster, especially given the popularity of wedding-themed movies in the 2000s, promising a dynamic akin to Tom Hanks and Meg Ryan’s classic pairings.

Interestingly, Bride Wars diverges from typical romantic comedies by focusing more on the rivalry between Hudson’s Liv and Hathaway’s Emma than on romance itself. The male leads, portrayed by Steve Howey and a notably laid-back Chris Pratt, have limited screen time. Meanwhile, Liv’s brother, played by Bryan Greenberg, harbors a secret crush on Emma, a subplot that feels peripheral to the main story.

This might seem counterproductive for a romantic comedy, yet the film’s emphasis on female friendship and rivalry rather than romance is notable. It explores themes of personal aspirations and friendship, challenging the notion that women are incomplete without a romantic partner. The film hints at satirical elements, poking fun at the wedding industry and societal pressures on young women. Screenwriters Casey Wilson and June Diane Raphael, who also appear in the film, were well-positioned to tackle these themes, creating a narrative that balances female camaraderie with mature romance.

But, as was noted at the time, the movie goes about it in about the least satirical, most blunt-force away imaginable that could still conceivably attract Hudson and Hathaway into a PG-13 light comedy. So there’s a “prank” involving Liv’s weight (marking perhaps the first time Kate Hudson has ever been tasked with playing someone with more than 2% body fat) that doesn’t really pay off; she realizes that she’s been tricked into eating a variety of sweets while training to maintain her weight, and then gets upset. No escalation, no clever twist; one amusing joke about the “international butter club” (“you’ve been sitting around eating butter from different lands?”) that sounds more like Wilson and Raphael and is tacked on to the end of the scene.

Much of the movie has that feel; it’s chopped and montaged within an inch of its life (runtime when the credits roll: 84 minutes), as if everyone involved, including the late director Gary Winick (Tadpole) was torn between giving it their best effort and running like hell to get away from the result. Even the movie’s fraught timeline is accelerated: The same-day weddings are presented as the only real obstacle to the entire enterprise getting turned around in three months, an absurdly compressed amount of time to plan and execute a Plaza wedding of anyone’s dreams. That’s really why Bride Wars might have damaged an entire genre: It attempts to rib the ridiculousness of wedding obsession, and succeeds in making the whole idea of even watching a movie about wedding obsession seem intensely onerous and meaningless at the same time.

Bride Wars can’t be the sole recipient of this blame. In fact, by coming out in January 2009, it kicked off a truly appalling year for the romantic and romantic-adjacent comedy, one that included the sour marriage-themed Couples Retreat, the would-be frothiness of a Confessions of a Shopaholic, the dreary ensemble He’s Just That Into You, the vulgar Katherine Heigl/Gerard Butler team-up The Ugly Truth, the teen flop I Love You, Beth Cooper (based on a great comic novel), the smash hit The Proposal (still bad!), and two different Nia Vardalos movies. The best we could do was It’s Complicated (mid-level Nancy Meyers) and (500) Days of Summer (ambitious, bittersweet, still kind of sour). A year after the release of Bride Wars, Amy Adams was going through the same degradation as Hathaway and Hudson, starring in the retrograde and vaguely depressing Leap Year.

So as bad as this movie is, it might not even be the worst romantic comedy of its year, and it certainly wasn’t the biggest hit or flop. It was more of a warning sign: If two Oscar nominees could get themselves into this mess, maybe no one was safe from a rom-com movie or a wedding movie or a “girl movie” going horribly wrong. It should have been clear a decade earlier, but the post-When Harry Met Sally refractory period was over, and the golden age of rom-com as a star-making proving ground was long gone. Begun, the Bride Wars had.

Jesse Hassenger (@rockmarooned) is a writer living in Brooklyn. He’s a regular contributor to The A.V. Club, Polygon, and The Week, among others. He podcasts at www.sportsalcohol.com, too.

Watch Bride Wars on Netflix