A
film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net on April 26, 2013.
Despite
being adapted from a generally well-liked French film (Mon frère se marie, 2006), The
Big Wedding feels like nothing more ambitious than a big screen sitcom.
It's tired and dated with too few laughs to justify the stultifying attempts at
drama and the impossible-to-swallow plot contortions. The justification for the
central narrative conceit, a divorced couple pretending to still be married, is
sufficiently absurd to make one question the intelligence of all those
involved. Sympathetic characters are few and far between and, when one does
show up, he/she is afforded minimal screen time.
The
humor in The Big Wedding is sufficient
to elevate it from the completely
unwatchable category into the disappointingly
mediocre one. That, I suppose, is damning with faint praise. There are some
amusing one-liners and punch lines that result in half-hearted laughter, but
those instances don't come frequently enough to camouflage the film's numerous,
obvious deficiencies. The only way for a comedy to work when the screenplay
makes no attempt to build emotional connections between audience and characters
is for it to offer nonstop hilarity. That doesn't happen here. The Big Wedding's attempts at
relationship-building are embarrassing and the situation isn't helped by a
roster of high-profile stars (Robert De
Niro, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon, Katherine Heigl, Amanda
Seyfried) going through the motions. The only ones who seem to be trying
are Topher Grace and Ben Barnes. Robin Williams has what amounts to a very odd cameo (reminiscent of
his similar role in License to Wed)
and Ana Ayora's skinny dipping scene
serves as The Big Wedding's lone
highlight.
Like
most wedding movies, this is all about the behind-the-scenes shenanigans that
go on leading up to the big event. Don (De Niro) and Ellie (Keaton) have been
divorced for a number of years. Don lives with Bebe (Sarandon) in the palatial
(but not overly ostentatious) house he once shared with Ellie. The three
haven't seen one another since the divorce but they seem chummy enough. Don and
Ellie have come together for the wedding of their adopted son, Alejandro
(Barnes), to his willowy girlfriend, Missy (Seyfried). Also on hand are the
couple's other children, Jared (Grace) and Lyla (Heigl). Jared is a 29-year old
virgin eager to lose that distinction and Lyla is smarting from the breakup of
her marriage. Complications arise as a result of the arrival of Alejandro's
biological mother from Columbia. Madonna (Patricia
Rae) is a devout Catholic who views divorce as sinful. In order to put up a
good front for his mother and sister (Ayora), Alejandro asks Don and Ellie to
pretend to still be married. Much to the chagrin of Bebe, they agree. Hilarity
ensues. Well, not really, but that's what the filmmakers would like viewers to
believe.
There's
not much to say about the movie because there's so little there in the way of
substance. As wedding-related movies go, it's closer to the worst than the
best. It's pretty obviously targeted at middle-aged women, which makes it ideal
counterprogramming for the male-oriented
Pain & Gain, which opens the same
weekend. Perhaps the most impressive thing about The Big Wedding is how many A-list actors signed on to be in the
production of a relatively unknown director - Justin Zackham's only previous credit is the forgettable (and
forgotten) 2001 feature, Going Greek.
Still, none of them does stand-out work - they come, say their lines, and get
their paychecks. Everything about The Big
Wedding is generic from the title to the plot to the payoff. Even clocking
in at a skinny 90 minutes, it's a waste of time. [Berardinelli’s rating: *½ out
of 4 stars]
Labels:
comedy, cross-cultural, drama, reunion, romance, satire, wedding
Blu-ray 
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