It might be time to put a stop to wedding movies. ALL wedding movies. It’s just too stupid to invent controversy where none belongs. And there is always some random pathological need to invent controversy with cinematic weddings. Take The Big Wedding, for instance. No, just take it. Drag it out to field and bury it; I don’t want to think about it any longer. Oh … all right. Long as I’m here. *sigh* The Big Wedding has the standard: two very pretty people (Amanda Seyfried and Ben Barnes) getting married in a setting so beautiful you wanna punch somebody. But this wedding is “marred” by a “controversy” so contrived it might just offend an entire hemisphere. Fingers crossed.
Years ago, so legend has it, Don (Robert De Niro) and Ellie (Diane Keaton) adopted Alejandro (Barnes) from that notable 3rd world country famous for donating its children … Colombia. Sure, why not? Even though Alejandro already had a mom (Patricia Rae). Sure, why not? As Alejandro grows, Ellie parts and Don trades her for Bebe (Susan Sarandon). And now, “Alex” wants to invite his birthmother to the wedding, but she’s not gonna understand the whole divorce thing, so Don and Ellie have to put aside their differences for the sake of their adopted son on his big day. Horseshit, right? Luckily, Bebe has the good grace not to leave the scene, which is great because for a while I thought Susan Sarandon might not get a chance to scowl in this film.
Did I mention the Colombian birth mother is named “Madonna?” Really. You know what the worst part is? The patrons of this film actually buy into this crap. Latin-American Catholics are just sooooo rigid, they can’t even understand divorce. And you “solve” the problem by pretending a long-
divorced couple is married.
Meanwhile, not-so-adopted son Jared (Topher Grace) has taken a shine to his Colombian “sister,” Nuria (Ana Ayora). She introduces herself by getting naked for some estate pond quality swim time. Then at the rehearsal dinner, she proceeds to give Jared a hand job under the table. This absurdly out-of-place sex fantasy is punctuated by Don relating the story of how he an Ellie met, and a relative then urging him to cut the tale short, “just get to the happy ending.” I can’t say that didn’t make me laugh; I can say I was embarrassed at doing so. When Ellie catches Nuria playing under-the-tabletop Frogger, she then pulls the woman aside to give her a lecture about self-respect. Jared spends the rest of the film romantically courting a woman he calls “sister.” I have no idea where to begin on the wrong here. I just have to skip it and move on.
The Big Wedding is for people who don’t like real conflict, but enjoy it when old people talk about sex. Consider the ethnicity of adopted son, Alejandro. The screenplay makes multiple mentions of “brown grandchildren” as a mock bogeyman to taunt an uptight mother-in-law. Yeah, “brown” because the would-be father is being played by English actor Ben Barnes. So, we’re mocking the values of the bigoted rich, yet at the same time we can’t in reality show an honest interracial marriage. Here’s my theory: the producers actually had a screenplay written in which the adopted son was a black guy, but got cold feet when they thought about their audience. Hence, they changed “black” to “Hispanic” and cast the most Anglo- mother and son combo they could get away with. Madonna is from Colombia. Really? She’s from Colombia. Right. Yeah, the same way Mark Cuban is Cuban. I took the trouble of looking up Patricia Rae. Born in Manhattan, raised in Queens. Of Colombian ancestry. Did you mean Columbia University in Upper Manhattan? Does she teach there? That I’ll buy.
Robin Williams as Father Moinighan was unable to ruin this movie; it was ruined when he got there.
Welcome to the wedding of my daughter
Groomrents split? You know they shouldn’t oughtter
For fabrication on par
No need to look far
Come, let me show you Harry Potter.
Rated R, 90 Minutes
D: Justin Zackham
W: Justin Zackham
Genre: Pretend conflict
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Your racist, but pretends he isn’t, grandfather
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: Fans of reality
