The Big Wedding: A Family Affair Gone Hilariously Wrong
At Alejandro Griffin’s wedding, his entire family gathers for the first time: his biological mother, two adoptive mothers, his aging playboy father, two sisters, and a 29-year-old virgin brother. Each family member has their own set of quirks and issues. To complicate matters, Alejandro’s devoutly Catholic, Spanish-speaking biological mother must not find out that his adoptive parents have been divorced for years.
Director Justin Zackham previously explored the theme of aging individuals trying to recapture their youth in “The Bucket List,” where he served as a screenwriter.
Hollywood has recently embraced the theme of “life begins after sixty,” albeit with mixed results. These films often resemble youth comedies, dedicating a significant portion of their runtime to jokes about sex, with the remaining time devoted to declarations of eternal love or friendship, adjusted for the age of the characters and the prestige of the actors. We’ve seen the likes of Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones, and Barbra Streisand in such roles, and secretly hoped that Robert De Niro would never engage in oral sex on a kitchen table with Susan Sarandon in front of Diane Keaton. Alas, the storyline of the numerous parents in “The Big Wedding” inexplicably veers in an intimate direction.
De Niro and Keaton previously appeared together in “Marvin’s Room” and “The Godfather Part II,” although their characters never shared a scene in the latter.
A Comedy of Errors and Awkward Encounters
Based on the adapted Americanized plot of the unremarkable Swiss-French film “Mon frère se marie” (“My Brother Is Getting Married”), it could have been a silly youth comedy with a lively, mischievous family. The main plot points revolve around parents confessing their spicy past escapades and the peculiarities of losing one’s virginity at 29 to their unbearably boring children. However, there’s also a subplot involving a father who adores his daughter, and every scene between De Niro and Heigl transforms into an improbable melodrama with tears, regardless of their scripted dialogue. The other actors also perform wonders in the moments when they aren’t forced to utter lines like, “I slept with your bride’s father.”
Saving Grace: The Cast
Any film with a comparable cast could be nominated for an Oscar, but in “The Big Wedding,” each actor deserves a medal for bravery. These actors, whose names are too numerous to list, use their expressions to set the tone in scenes where the script has forgotten to do so.