When the Cheshire emerges...

I know I've been a bit quiet this week. It feels like it's been pretty full on, but only at times productive.

Anyway, here's your review! Another one to avoid though. Reading The Great Gatsby and salivating at the thought of how good the new film is going to be. No pressure Baz, no pressure.

The Big Wedding (MA 15+)

A MATRIMONIAL ceremony is a time when a family is meant to be most at peace, putting whatever problems there may be aside to come together for the central couple and having a nice time.
But what cinema has asked us time and time again to believe is that it never goes to plan. Not really.

Secrets come out, someone gets pissed off, someone else gets really hurt - and there’s usually a sexual undertone to the whole thing that suggests our primal instincts are what a decent portion of our lives come down to. In this over-exposed era, that undertone in cinema has well and truly come to the surface.

Justin Zackham, best known for The Bucket List, has a lot to contend with. The remake of 2006 French film Mon frere se marie deals with the Griffin family, who are preparing for their adopted son Alejandro’s (Ben Barnes) wedding to Missy O’Connor (Amanda Seyfried). The family tries to conceal that Don (Robert De Niro) and Ellie (Diane Keaton) have been long-divorced from Alejandro’s biological mother Madonna (Patricia Rae).

The first hurdle is watching that idea of fabrication try to unfold. By implementing the lie, Alejandro pushes Don’s long-time partner Bebe (Susan Sarandon) completely out of the picture. And you’re meant to believe someone would do this to a woman they’ve grown up around to please family from Colombia.

Zackham’s screenplay does the concept no favours. There’s a lot of awkward banter that goes nowhere as you wait to hear even one sentence form, and applying inappropriate humour usually seen between those in Judd Apatow’s circle (Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen, etc) to borderline seniors doesn’t pull off and break any stereotypes.

The characters aren’t terribly interesting either. They might be spontaneous, but are incredibly shallow. Virginal 29-year-old Jared (Topher Grace) immediately sets his sights on Alejandro’s Colombian sister Nuria (Ana Avora), while Lyla (Katherine Heigl) just hates the whole family, especially her father Don.
Don and Lyla’s struggling relationship is the only thing that allows the smallest bit of emotion in between a plot that thickens into a steaming hot mess. While kept short at 89 minutes, it’s more than enough to see a family completely dismantle.

Instead, this story presents instead a group willing to stick by one another amidst all their faults - which is admirable but, with this family’s history, inconceivable. Trying to rescue a drowning story by a half-hearted attempt to weave in character backgrounds is disappointing to watch because it’s already a losing game.

Rating: 2/5


MISSED LAST WEEK'S REVIEW? See what I thought of Iron Man 3.