Con’s Score:3.5 Dum-dum dee-dum’s
Weddings always make great fodder for movies. The time pressure, the elaborate details, the number of guests, the building to the event, and the reception is a great setting for lots of mayhem…. there’s so much to make fun of. This film takes us ‘backstage’ and through the travails of the wedding organisers.
Max (Jean-Pierre Bacri) is a wedding organiser who is facing some big decisions: Should he retire? Should he leave his wife and go with his mistress (Only the French can get away with a storyline like this). And can he pull off this elaborate, and expensive wedding at a 17th Century Castle?
The array of characters opens up lots of story lines. There’s Guy (Jean-Paul Rouve) the photographer, who is an arrogant professional. Adele (Eye Haidara) is the grenade-launching feisty assistant; James (Gilles Lellouche) the perfectionist wedding singer, and Pierre (Benjamin Lavernhe) the egotistical groom who makes sure he’s the star of the show. And there’s the melancholy Julienne (Vincent Macaigne) who once dated the bride, and hopes to rekindle their relationship… at the wedding?!?!
The French like a good farcical comedy, and this has its share of slapstick. Almost everything that can go wrong, does, but then recovers. There’s a lot of happy endings along the way – too many – and I’ll be haunted by Pierre’s flying ‘surprise’ for his wife. It’s classic schmaltz.
Co-directors and screenwriters Eric Toledano and Olivier Nakache (The Intouchables) don’t go for sharp lines or edgy humour. This is warm and friendly stuff, although the jazzy soundtrack is sharp.
They have cast well and built a great array of characters, with actors who each grab their moments. It would have have been better if they’d been given some sharp lines and better comedy to play with. This pulls its punches but is still a fun night out. Just not as memorable as most weddings.
Con Nats – Theatre Now: On The Screen
