How can I begin to describe a film like The Big Wedding? Based on a patronising and insulting premise, with largely unappealing characters, and very few redeemable moments, it was one of the worst films I have seen. Despite a promising cast, it failed to deliver on all fronts.
A young man is getting married. His adoptive parents have got divorced, with his adoptive father now in a relationship with a new woman. But the boy’s biological mother is Catholic and from Columbia, so they have to pretend that the adoptive parents are still married during the wedding, or she will go mad. Obviously. Do filmmakers really still feel the need to peddle stereotypes so outdated and crude? The general tone of The Big Wedding is unfunny and puerile, with several moments where I wanted to cringe and run out of the cinema. Aiming to achieve the success of films like Father of the Bride, which is I suppose why they cast Diane Keaton, it fails as it is utterly charmless and contrived.
Most of the actors struggled with such a poor plot, despite a few thoughtful details. Katherine Heigl’s performance as Lyla is probably the most convincing, as she plays a woman who is pregnant having previously struggled to conceive, but it seems quite incongruous wedged between scenes of middle-aged bawdiness.
The wedding itself has the classic film trait of none of the extras at the lunch party actually engaging with the main actors, leaving the audience mildly perplexed at why on earth so many people have turned up to witness the debacle without any recognition from those involved. The chaos is compounded by the decision of two parents (I won’t reveal which just in case for some bizarre reason you choose to watch this dreadful film) to get married at their child’s wedding. How selfish do you have to be to hijack your offspring’s life with your own pathetic attempt to appease the woman you’ve cheated on? Perhaps the only character I warmed to was the man who caused all the problems through his lie, Alejandro the groom (played in a very sweet manner by Ben Barnes, whom you might know from his role as Prince Caspian in the Narnia films, or as Dorian Gray in Dorian Gray).
But, although I am loathe to criticise a film so comprehensively, I struggle to find one thing to recommend The Big Wedding.
Delia
Lockey
