If you scroll through my movie reviews, you will likely notice that
almost all of them bear a four- or five-star rating. There are two major
reasons for this. The first is that I try to look for the good in
things. I’m willing to overlook a lot of bad stuff if I ultimately
enjoyed the movie more than I hated it. The other reason is that I
rarely watch movies that I think I won’t like. Once in a while, though, I
figure I might as well increase my credibility by going to a movie that
I’m sure will earn a miserable review from me. So I didn’t complain
much when my friend suggested going to see Wedding Crashers, a
film I had pinned as one of the most disgusting of the summer. “But what
if you like it?” my brother queried just before I left. “Well,” I
replied, “I shall be very disappointed.”
Pile on the disappointment.
The film opens with John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince
Vaughn) hard at work at their job, pretty much the only time this
happens in the movie. Right off the bat it is easy to see that the two
are good buddies. It also seems that their success in their career is
based upon their immense capacity to irritate whoever they are advising.
John hangs back a bit, only inserting occasional comments, but Jeremy
talks with the speed of the Micro Machine Man, and each thing he says
makes less sense than whatever came before. His motor-mouth tendencies
come up several times in the film, causing several tirades that are
somewhat amusing but more obnoxious. His frenetic energy makes him the
more annoying of the two, though I’ve yet to see a movie in which I
don’t find Wilson irritating. It’s harder to pinpoint just why, but I
think it has to do with an overall aura of ditziness. Actually, for the
most part he came across more intelligently here than he usually does,
and there was an undeniable sweetness to his character. And while I
didn’t like Vaughn’s character much, I had to admire his loyalty and
feel sorry for him when John was too head over heels to be sensitive to
his friend’s needs.
The premise of two guys crashing weddings
in order to hook up with vulnerable young women is a pretty crude one,
but the extensive montage scene showing how they achieve those goals is
amusing and ingenious without being offensive, at least until the last
minute or so. This is where the men’s real talents come to the
forefront, and they manage to ingratiate themselves to a wide variety of
guests, becoming the life of the party whether the wedding is Jewish,
Indian or Greek. They show such congeniality, restraint and charisma
during these receptions, it’s a shame such talents are reserved for
ultimately unscrupulous activities. I couldn’t help but think of all the
great things they could be doing if they focused their skills more
appropriately.
The real conflict begins after the exhausting
but exhilarating summer wedding season is over and they are settling
back into a more relaxed lifestyle. But the wedding of prominent
Secretary Cleary’s (Christopher Walken) daughter draws them out of their
off-season leisure, and the high stakes and change of pace seem to
impinge upon their decorum, at least at the wedding. Their barely
whispered discussions in the church pew are jarring and most unseemly
for the setting, though I couldn’t help but be amused by their wager
over which biblical lesson the bride’s sister would read. The movie as a
whole makes some interesting observations about the traditions involved
in weddings – and the frequent insincerity of the guests. There’s a
certain cynicism to it, but at the same time you walk out of the movie
with the feeling that marriage is an institution to be respected.
John and Jeremy both lay eyes early on their quarry. Both make a
connection by the reception. Jeremy achieves his ultimate goal but finds
his plan has backfired. Gloria (Isla Fisher), sister of the bride, is
smitten with him – is in fact obsessed with him to a psychotic degree.
Worse, he cannot beat a hasty retreat because John has forged an
emotional bond with Claire (Rachel McAdams), also a sister of the bride,
and he wants some extra time to get to know her better. She has ceased
to become one-night stand material; John, perhaps for the first time in
his life, is in love. What follows is a weekend with the rather deranged
family in which John sneaks in as much time with Claire as he can,
Jeremy endures any number of dangerous and uncomfortable situations in
the name of not abandoning his friend, and Claire’s boyfriend Sack
(Bradley Cooper) hires a detective to see what these two newcomers are
up to.
Probably my favorite character in the whole shebang is
Secretary Clearly. Walken has a knack for creating compelling supporting
characters, and he makes the senator a consummate politician and
sportsman, but above all a completely devoted father. His scenes with
McAdams are especially touching. He’s stuck with a tipsy wife (Jane
Seymour) who confides that she has been unfaithful to him for most of
their marriage. She seems severely unbalanced and spends most of her
on-screen time trying to seduce John. Perhaps even more disturbing is
Grandma Mary (Ellen Albertini Dow, as vitriolic here as she was sweet in
The Wedding Singer), who is uncouth and vocally homophobic and,
as my friend pointed out, really could have been excised from the film
entirely with no detriment to the plot. They probably could have done
away with Todd (Keir O’Donnell), the brooding black sheep of the Cleary
family, altogether. He is a leering, unkempt presence, and though I
initially wanted to feel sorry for this unappreciated artist, he was too
surly and downright creepy to win points from me. His main purpose, I
guess, is to make Jeremy also suffer through seduction from a most
unwelcome family member, but he has to put up with so much anyway, this
seems most unnecessary. Rounding out the loony bin is Sack, who’s a
stereotypical svelte, controlling jerk who takes his girlfriend for
granted but sees red if he thinks anyone else might have his eye on her.
His cocky attitude and constant bullying make him a guy it’s easy to
love to hate.
For the most part, I found Gloria to be utterly
obnoxious, but I guess that’s okay because I felt the same way about
Jeremy. The two are suited to one another. Claire is an entirely
different story. This is McAdams at the most likable I’ve seen her. Too
manipulative in Mean Girls, too volatile in The Notebook,
here she is just a sweet, idealistic girl who loves her dad and is stuck
with a major bummer of a boyfriend who the whole family seems to love.
She thinks she loves him, but the more she sees of his vicious behavior
towards the two mysterious guests the less sure she is. Cut out all of
the gross-out trappings, and Wilson and McAdams create a surprisingly
tender romantic comedy.
I had heard enough about this film
beforehand that I expected non-stop opportunities for me to wave a hefty
bag of popcorn in front of my face in order to shield my eyes from the
depravities occurring on screen. What I got was long stretches of film
that were hardly offensive at all, with a few extremely tasteless scenes
thrown in so the group of guys roaring in the back row of the theater
wouldn’t feel as though they had wasted their money. If TBS got its
hands on this, strategically removing the most blatantly low-brow parts
and smoothing over the raunchy language, it would probably be a
perfectly appropriate film. Granted, if I hadn’t been so sure I would
hate it, I probably wouldn’t have liked it as much. But however I got
there, I arrived at the conclusion that Wedding Crashers is actually a decent movie. Sorry, Epinions, looks like it’s going to be another high rating from bilbopooh.
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