The best creative choice in the script is narrowing the world to just these two characters, who have the film’s only speaking parts. She’s one romantic comedy heroine who would never let her love life hinge on a miscommunication. The film tells the story of Madea and her extended family going to the Bahamas for a destination wedding when Brian Simmons’ daughter Tiffany proposes to a man named Zavier. Peter Jackson did something similar in the original Tolkien trilogy, in scenes where big and small characters conversed.
- Lindsey’s still neurotically nursing her wounds six years later; Frank seems to be a born misanthrope, eager to persuade Lindsey that love is a lie.
- As Madea frantically drives out of the parking lot, she goes to a nearby gas station to refill her car.
- This cynical romantic comedy bets that audiences will swoon over seeing Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves play bickering guests.
- His characters talk like TV characters, as if their speech is the hand-crank battery keeping the whole thing running.
- The family reunited at a buffet and Brian is told before he joins the table that the investigation into Z led to nothing and Brian decided that just let the marriage proceed without objection.
Frank hates the whole idea of marriage and everyone attending the wedding, including his parents. While Levin’s writing is sharp and observant, it’s also often overwrought and eventually just plain tiresome. Not one other character has a line, even the bride and groom, but this intense two-hander approach forces Ryder and Reeves to fill nearly every moment of screen time with incessant chatter. Then he imparts a show-offy twist to emphasize the odd-couple angle by giving Frank and Lindsay literally all of the dialogue in the movie. Writer-director Levin, whose last feature was the 2015 romantic drama 5 to 7, here clearly aspires to the level of bold repartee characteristic of classic screwball comedy, a risky strategy at best.
Why do you want to capture your wedding on video?
There’s no grand declaration of love, just the slow, oddly touching realisation that sometimes, the person who hates the same things as you just might be the person you hate the least. When the film inevitably lurches toward romance, it’s slightly frustrating that out of the two, it’s Ryder’s character whose cynicism melts into affection. While some of the dialogue does border on overwritten (“Why would you want me to perpetuate my circumstances?” etc), there’s enough wit and finely observed pedantry to make up for the occasional indulgence. Given that they’re both playing bitchy misanthropes judging those around them, it’s also a bit like watching a nastier, sexier Statler and Waldorf let loose at a wedding.
Watch Jesse Plemons Revive His ‘Friday Night Lights’ Metal Band Crucifictorious
Given that we’re not even given the chance to meet the bride and groom, all we have is acerbic commentary provided by two people who hate them both and most of the other guests while they’re at it. It’s not unusual to see a romantic comedy that is a) set a wedding and b) unfolding between two characters who initially hate each other, but Destination Wedding does manage to spin these tired cliches into something somewhat fresh. With its low-budget, low-personnel premise (its leads are the only speaking characters, the wedding of the title takes place mostly offscreen) it feels like something that might debut at a more innocent Sundance — an extended meet-cute for fans of Reservoir Dogs. Then explain to them that they, too, are characters in a fictional film called Destination Wedding, and seem to be doing pretty well, considering the precedents, so they should maybe be more grateful and enjoy their fictional lives more, maybe fall in love or whatever. In fact, they’re not just doing historically well for characters in movies with “destination” in the title, they’re also the luckiest characters of all time in movies called Destination Wedding. And although Reeves and Ryder’s frustration with being at a destination wedding might be relatable in our world, in the world of “fictional characters in movies with ‘destination’ in the title,” the duo is positively ungrateful.
Share this:
Both were iconic young actors of the 1980s, both of whom have tracked extensive screen careers since, yet putting them back together feels like the most logical idea possible. Destination Wedding is a romantic comedy that pairs together Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder for the first time since Bram Stoker’s Dracula in 1992. Writer/director Victor Levin’s credits include Mad About You, a sitcom (by its nature, a talky format) about two likeable Jewish neurotics in love. They’ve been miserable with everyone else, and because misery loves company, it’s logical that Lindsay and Frank’s miseries will cancel out into bliss.
Motherhood, Colonialism, a Keyboard Prodigy and a Surrealist Love Story: Locarno Unveils Open Doors Africa Projects
In this witty, new breed of mystery, George (Hugh Jackman) is a shepherd who reads detective novels to his beloved sheep every night, assuming they can’t possibly understand. However, isolated from the other wedding guests, the two spend a lot of time together. Frank is scarred from a bad family history, and Lindsay is heartbroken from a previous relationship. She loves an excuse to try on a veil, has a minor obsession with flower crowns, and enjoys nothing more than curating a killer party playlist.
Maybe he just doesn’t want to commit to learning more about film history and technique than he already knows, because if he did, he’d have to make fewer movies. But there’s a lot of flab in the scenes of banter and misunderstanding. Though the film holds out a glimmer of hope for two broken people who just might be made for each other, it’s too little, too late.
Beautiful Barn Wedding Film By White Dress Films
We want our wedding to be full of love and laughter and brimming with lifelong memories. And we’re incredibly humbled to know we’ll have around 50 of our loved ones joining us to celebrate our commitment to one another. And Nelliefred’s, our reception venue, is a lovely pub in Dingle Town. We had barely even considered a wedding film before meeting you. This film will not only be a treasure for us when we reflect back on our incredible day, but we’re thrilled to have something so special to share with all of our loved ones back home, too. They eventually landed on the idea of having a destination wedding in Ireland!
Lindsey’s still neurotically nursing her wounds six years later; Frank seems to be a born misanthrope, eager to persuade Lindsey that love is a lie. The two motormouths in question are Lindsey (Winona Ryder) and Frank (Keanu Reeves), two Southern Californians who meet en route to the central coast for the wedding in question. Writer-director Victor Levin’s TV background accounts for a lot of that (he has credits in Mad About You and Dream On, and more recently, Mad Men).
Later, he tells Lindsay about how his father once attacked him with a gun, a story that for another character — and in another actor’s hands — would be a traumatic reveal. The same goes for the audience, which will be less engaged by the plot than it will by watching two cherished Generation-X icons go through the motions. In the frenzy of one of her storms, she exhales, “Don’t you believe that there’s someone for everyone? Victor Levin’s “Destination Wedding,” the third pairing of slacker-era stars Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, is a romantic comedy with the romance desaturated to a brutalist black. This cynical romantic comedy bets that audiences will swoon over seeing Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves play bickering guests.
So it is perfect when these two get thrown together en route to the same destination wedding in Paso Robles. These two have been so jaded by life and by love that they can barely function in the real world. He doesn’t believe in happiness, and he doesn’t much care for anything or wedding videographer Lake Como anyone else. Frank and Lindsey are both quite negative people, Frank even more so.
Recent Comments