Beth was a jerk.

I can see where you're coming from. I guess it you approach it from one angle, every point you make points to Beth being an underhanded sneaky sadist bitch. If you look at it from the opposite angle, it could be that:

a) Beth didn't even mean to send Mavis that email with the photo of the baby, and in fact she just hit SEND TO ALL in their email address book and Mavis's email address happened to be in there? I agree though, it seems on the surface like a really odd thing to do. You'd think the movie would make more sense if Mavis just happened to see the photo on a mutual friends page on Facebook?

b) Beth might have genuinely felt sad for Mavis and invited her along to things wanting to help her, but didn't know how to help her on a deeper level so just did what she could?

Looking at it from your perspective, it would make sense that Beth is trying to get back at Mavis, especially in the scene where she goes to see Beths band play. It seems almost like Beth asked her friend to dedicate the song they played to Buddy from Beth just to scorn Mavis, and then went onto play the song she knew to be Buddy and Mavis's high school love song. And Beths friends were pretty nasty to Mavis, which makes your point even stronger because if Beth genuinely wanted to help Mavis, she would have asked her friends to be kinder.

Anyway, great movie with lots and lots of interesting moments.

Lgirl is right on the money with that post. All of it. Mavis mentions she got the email "like the rest of the gang" so the group email obviously went out to the old High school gang which she was obviously apart of and probably ran it being the Prom queen kind of thing. So I am sure whoever sent it, Beth, or Buddy using Beths email (they seemed like a trusting couple who might use each other's accounts and know one another's passwords) either way it wasn't a vindictive thing in my eyes. She was probably attatched to the group email to hear news about all her old high school friends. It would have been more realistic for them to post it on Facebook. But I think they did the email thing to cause drama to make Mavis narcissistically think it was personal for whatever reasons. And yeah they probably heard she got married and figured she still was. And also figured she was happy, doing her thing writing in the city. It had been 15 years! They prob thought she was happy and moved on. They didn't know she was suffering from depression and other things. Ruminating on the past as much as she was. They were all well adjusted people. So they just naturally assumed this about Mavis. Beth's friends did make nasty comments, but I think that was them being protective of Beth. It was obvious Mavis was being flirtatious and a bit to close for comfort and her hanging with Buddy and Beth seemed so random...... and sure, they probably had jealousy towards her in High School. But they were still happy people. You could tell. They were pissed the old Prom Queen randomly was in town spending her time with their best friends husband. I didn't think Beth was a jerk at all. I did however think it was strange that Buddy kissed Mavis. I watched it like 4 times and they both go in at the same time. He even holds her a little. It wasnt a total one sided kiss. And the babysitter interrupted it. I do think he was just trashed, and she was totally manipulating him in that moment. And I do wonder if he told Beth about it, or just forgot it even happened, or wanted to forget that it happened because he clearly was in a healthy happy marriage with a child. The last thing I would ever think after watching this was that Beth was a jerk. If anything Buddy was kind of a jerk for allowing Mavis to continue making a fool of herself. For not being more up front. For allowing Beth to invite her to the baby naming ceremony. And then in front of everyone calling her sick and stuff--- even if she was acting like a horrible person and making a scene. He didnt have to say that. He allowed her to be there. He even kissed her. He didn't really "lead her on" but he didn't fully stop anything in time when it was clear what her intentions were.

There was absolutely nothing wrong with anything Beth did in the entire movie. The OP has misinterpreted everything.

Absolutely ! Beth knew exactly what she was doing ! I think it would have been perfect if they would have had a quick scene showing Beth and her fellow band members throwing each other high fives in a “mission accomplished” type of way right after Mavis left the naming party.

Beth proves she can be an even bigger sadistic b***h than the high school prom queen.