Film review: The Big Wedding
Thought your family was complicated? Think again…
Weddings are joyous affairs centering around the union of a besotted couple very much in love, right? Wrong. Well, wrong if you’re part of the eclectic mix of people that make up the Griffin family, then all bets are off.
With one fake marriage, two real ones, a barrage of illicit affairs and a priest come recovering alcoholic, the cutting of the cake is the last thing on anyone’s mind. In fact, the whole wedding is the last thing on anyone’s mind. Most of the family is busy punching philandering father of the groom Don Grffin (Rober De Niro) and the rest are trying to piece together the shared sexual history of the various women among the bridal party.
The adoptive mother of the groom (Diane Keaton) has slept with the father of the bride (David Rasche), the divorced adoptive parents (Keaton and De Niro) have an affair the morning of the wedding and the mother of the bride (Christine Ebersole) fancies the groom’s step-adoptive mum (Susan Sarandon). See, not much thinking about the wedding going on.
The cherry on top is that this is all going on while the whole family is trying to convince the groom’s real Columbian mother (Patricia Rae) that her son Alejandro (Ben Barnes) has been bought up by a respectable American family.
The film isn’t quite as slick as other big cast movies, such as Love Actually, but the chaos is part of the charm. There are a few cracking one-liners and Robin Williams is brilliantly cast as the priest who attends AA meetings in between taking confessions. Katherine Heigl brings an emotional storyline to the table as she struggles to get pregnant and Susan Sarandon dazzles as a scorned woman desperate to get revenge.
For a jolly journey through the ups and downs of a modern dysfunction family check out The Big Wedding in cinemas from Wednesday 29th May 2013.
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