Wedding Crashers (2005) [R] ****

A film review by James Berardinelli for ReelViews.net

Please note: Obvious references to Animal House, Porky's, American Pie, and Old School will not be used in this review. Whether appropriate or not, those titles will not appear.

During the first ten minutes of Wedding Crashers, we are treated to a display of the debauched antics that were staples in comedies of the late 1970s and 1980s. Alas, it's only a tease. Pretty soon, this movie settles into the comfortable groove of telling its story - a by-the-numbers romantic comedy that's far too plot-heavy for its own good. The jokes become farther apart and less funny as the filmmakers mistakenly believe that we in the audience actually care about the characters and their romantic entanglements. No cliché goes unused as the movie stumbles along its predetermined trajectory. I'm not going to explicitly reveal the ending, but if you have seen more than one romantic comedy in your day, you'll know what's coming.

One of my rules of motion pictures is that only a rare comedy can hold an audience for more than 90 minutes. There's a reason why most humor-based motion pictures are short: it's easy for this kind of film to wear out its welcome. Wedding Crashers is nearly two hours long, and it would have been a more jaunty, jovial affair had the second half of the movie been reduced by 50%. All of the so-called character building falls flat, and the morose, guilt-laden feelings associated with the romantic complications drag on forever. Plus, there's a disturbing scene of graphic violence that has no place in a movie designed to make us laugh.

John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Klein (Vince Vaughn) are professional wedding crashers. They appear uninvited at weddings, insinuate themselves into the crowd by pretending to be obscure relatives of the bride or groom, and partake of the open bar and hopefully open legs of the bridesmaids. When the eldest daughter of Treasury Secretary William Cleary (Christopher Walken) is getting married, John and Jeremy decide to pull off the mother of all wedding crashes. And it works perfectly, except for three complications. John unexpectedly falls for one of the bride's sisters, Claire (Rachel McAdams), Jeremy becomes the object of another sister's (Isla Fisher) sexual stalking and the mother of the bride (Jane Seymour) decides to seduce John. The Secretary likes them so much that he invites them back to a private party at his house, and they end up there for the weekend. This gives John a chance to spend some time with Claire and size up the competition: her burly fiancé, Sack (Bradley Cooper). Meanwhile, Jeremy spends much of his time trying to avoid the love-struck Gloria and her gay brother.

Too bad she uses a body double for the sex scene. As the film's romantic lead, Owen Wilson plays it straight. That leaves Vince Vaughn with all the funny scenes, and he pulls most of them off. When Vaughn's on screen, at least during the first 60 minutes, there's a chance Wedding Crashers will deliver a laugh. Wilson is just boring. Worse, there's no chemistry between him and his perky co-star, Rachel McAdams. McAdams (The Notebook, Mean Girls) is delightful, but she and Wilson never click, making the romance that is central to Wedding Crashers' success dead-on-arrival.

[Blogger’s note: McAdams and Wilson still have no romantic chemistry six years later in Midnight in Paris (2011), but this time it’s intentional.]

I have previously stated that predictability isn't necessarily a bad thing in a romantic comedy, but the film has to offer something to keep viewers interested. Once Wedding Crashers' humor has dried up around the half-way point, there's nothing left. All of the good stuff - the raw jokes, the bare breasts, and the profanity-laden asides - comes early in the proceedings. The only thing left for the final act is an unfunny cameo by Will Ferrell, whom we have come to expect more from. Then Wedding Crashers climaxes with a scene that's embarrassing for all involved.

If a film is going to be in bad taste, at least it should have the decency to follow through on its convictions, rather than morph into something else. Director David Dobkin (who worked with Wilson in Shanghai Knights and with Vaughn in Clay Pigeons) has crafted something flabby and mushy. It offers plenty of belly laughs early on, but the appeal is short-lived. It would be untrue for me to claim I didn't laugh during Wedding Crashers, but the longer the movie stayed on screen - outlasting its welcome by a considerable amount - the less amusing it was. After a promising beginning, this movie crashes and burns. [Berardinelli’s rating: ** out of 4 stars = 50%]

[Blogger’s comment: I totally agree with Berardinelli’s review and rating. This film is an embarrassment, and I cannot imagine that, fifteen years later, any of film’s stars – Cooper, Ferrell, Fisher, McAdams, Seymour, Vaughn, Walken and Wilson - look back on this experience with pride.]

Labels: comedy, romance, satire, wedding

Internet Movie Database 69/100 

Metacritic 64/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=67, viewers=70) 

Blu-ray 

Conversations with Other Women (2006) [R] ****

The wedding reception has nearly ended and most of the guests have left. The smooth 38-year-old bachelor (Aaron Eckhart), having fortified himself with champagne, wanders over to the attractive pink-gowned bridesmaid (Helena Bonham Carter) seated at a back table. He attempts to interest her in him. Can we guess where this will lead?

The charm of Conversations with Other Women, a quirky two-character drama that uses a split-screen visual device, is its insight into human nature. The man and woman at the film's center - we never do learn their names - are well aware of the pleasures and dangers of the voyage on which they're about to embark. They know the rules of engagement, and they know when to break them.

As the film moves from the wedding reception hall to the elevator and then to her hotel room, the split-screen device is used to show us the history of this couple. And it turns out they have quite a history, going back fifteen to twenty years. We see them as a young man (Erik Eidem) and woman (Nora Zehetner) and slowly, like pieces of a puzzle being turned over, we learn something of their history, together and apart.

Through Gabrielle Zevin’s well-crafted script and director-editor Hans Canosa’s split-screen device, we see separate images, closely aligned and sometimes overlapping, the way two past, present or future lovers might see the world. Occasionally one screen stays with the couple while the other screen looks in on their significant others, her husband Jeffrey (Philip Littell) or his girlfriend Sarah the Dancer (Serina Vincent), or on a shared experience that might be real or only a fantasy about a missed opportunity.

A film this well crafted risks being merely clever, and the energy does begin to diminish in the final scenes. But what could be just a self-conscious acting exercise is kept energized by Eckhart who shows us the vanity, fear and naiveté underneath his calm exterior, and by Bonham Carter who shows us her maturity, reality and boredom. While the characters are the same age, she observes: I feel like you're a little boy and I'm an older woman.

Labels: comedy, drama, romance, satire

Internet Movie Database 70/100 

Metacritic 62/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=65, viewers=76) 

The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone (2003) [R] ****

Never having read the 1950 Tennessee Williams novel upon which The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is based, or watched the 1961 big screen adaptation starring Vivien Leigh and Warren Beatty, I have nothing with which to compare this TV movie. Regardless, I cannot say I was overly impressed with The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone. The storyline includes intrigue and romance, however, the pacing is slow and many of the parts are overacted.

After having been savaged by New York drama critics for starring as Juliet in a Broadway play, fading actress Karen Stone (Helen Mirren) declares herself retired, and then she and her husband Tom (Brian Dennehy) depart for post-WWII Europe for a vacation. During their stay in Italy Tom passes away on a plane flight, leaving Karen to cope on her own. She decides to stay in Rome, a city still very much in the process of recovering from WWII. She comes to the attention of an aging Contessa (Anne Bancroft) who has a stable of handsome young Italian gigolos whom she introduces to wealthy middle-aged American women, in order to separate them from their wealth. She introduces several of them to Karen, finally introducing Paolo (Olivier Martinez) who, of course, has no interest in her other than her money. Karen buys Paolo dinners and a new gray suit like her dead husband’s last suit, and allows him to chauffeur her around in her 1953 Cadillac convertible. When he asks her for 1 million lire for an operation for his mother ($1,625 at the then exchange rate of $1 to 625 lire) she observes that it is a lot of money, but gives it to him.

While Karen enjoys his attention and revels in her own sexual awakening, when Paolo asks her for 10 million lire ($16,250) to compensate a friend who had lost it on the black market, Karen begins to realize what is happening. At the same time, she becomes increasingly aware that a strange, bedraggled young homeless man waits outside her apartment and follows her wherever she walks around the city. The film’s climax comes when Karen rebuffs the Contessa’s request for a large sum of money in dollars, and when she can no longer ignore the fact that Paolo has turned his amorous attentions to Angel Hunter (Tara Lynne O’Neill) a young actress filming in Rome, and that the Contessa has begun spreading vicious rumors about her.

The only thing about The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone that makes it worth watching is Helen Mirren’s subtle performance as Karen Stone, a fading stage actress and widow who discovers her passionate nature after having had a contented but passionless marriage, and then slowly realizes the romantic relationship is a sham and she is being played for a fool and humiliating herself.

Unfortunately the rest of the performances are not so subtle, and both Olivier Martinez and Anne Bancroft are little more than two-dimensional caricatures, which spoils the movie. The Roman Spring of Mrs. Stone is not a bad movie, but you expect it to be better than it is because of the material upon which it is based, and the talent starring in it.

Labels: drama, romance

Internet Movie Database 63/100 

RottenTomatoes Averages (critics=NA, viewers=60) 

Karen Stone’s 1953 Cadillac Convertible 

Wikipedia Italian lira