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User Review
Building an entire wedding movie around sex jokes, but adds in some well-timed honest family drama
Rating: 6/10
"The Big Wedding" seems to be following in the footsteps of the recent
Hollywood romantic comedies – gather as many big name stars as you can
and put them all in a romantic comedy storyline. It's the best of the
bunch, even though that's not saying anything at all. It's also based
on a French film "Mon frère se marie", and that's not really saying all
that much either.
Any description of the plot is just going to read as a listing of who's
who of Hollywood. But let's do it anyways: We have the patriarch and
matriarchs (Robert De Niro and Diane Keaton and Susan Sarandon); we
have the up-and-comers excited for their big day (Ben Barnes and Amanda
Seyfried); and then we have the middle siblings who have had their time
in the spotlight and are starting to fade away (Topher Grace and
Katherine Heigl).
The wedding revolves around lies (obviously) and religion - with Robin
Williams as the drunken Catholic priest. And it also includes lots and
lots of sex jokes. The surprising thing that audiences are taking away
from this film, especially in spite of the decidedly negative critics'
responses, is that it is hilarious. Fans of the film will find
themselves laughing from beginning to end. But to give you fair
warning, all of the jokes are sexually-based, and I mean all of them.
Laughing at the Catholic stigma of don't have sex but if you do, don't
be safe; laughing at people who have too much sex; laughing at people
who don't have sex; and worse of all, laughing at divorced and married
couples who have sex with one another. While some of the jokes were
funny, they're also responsible for creating the uneasy dynamic amongst
the characters – all of whom are family (or, at least, are about to
become in-laws). At times the film crosses the line from funny
dysfunctional family to repulsive dysfunctional family.
The one line that "The Big Wedding" straddles well is that between
comedy and drama. The film is effective when it moves from funny jokes
to touching family honesty and back to some more funny jokes. The story
lines are very predictable, and sometimes the jokes are too simple and
too wrong, but it tries to add in the right amount of drama, and
ultimately, it should be entertaining to fans of the genre.
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