Technical
assessment: 3
Moral
assessment: 2
MTRCB rating: R 13
CINEMA rating: V 18
CINEMA rating: V 18
The long divorced couple Don
and Ellie (Robert de Niro and Diane Keaton) get together with their grown-up
children for the wedding of their adopted son Alejandro (Ben Barnes) to Missy
(Amanda Seyfried). Alejandro has
kept the divorce a secret from his biological mother, Madonna, a pious
Colombian (Patricia Rae) who has not visited him in the United States since his
adoption. Now Madonna is coming
for the wedding. Don and Ellie
pretend to be a loving married couple, which means Don’s partner Bebe (Susan
Sarandon) has to be eased out of the picture. This results in more or less 80
minutes of awkward situations and certain realizations for everyone concerned.
Typical romantic comedy
created more for laughs than for logic. The
Big Wedding actors did their part well as far as the plot demands, and no
one’s complaining so far about the cinematography, dialogue, sound and
lighting, script, editing, the works.
So long as the audience is entertained, and entertain this movie does—what
with those big names in the cast.
Rom-com wedding movies from
Hollywood provide the moviegoer ample leverage for comic relief from the
resolution of knotty circumstances and the revelation of characters’
quirks. They are usually a
well-meaning bunch whose primary purpose is to make the audience laugh,
although sometimes, as in the case of The
Big Wedding, the laugh is on the Catholic religion. Catholics who know their religion would
recognize the false Catholicism and the outmoded catechesis shown in this
movie, and would probably forgive it the ignorance it so blatantly
displays. People, however—whether
non-Catholics or Catholics with inadequate catechism—will surely be misguided
and misled by the faux Catholicism The
Big Wedding picks on. Example:
Robin Williams who in his role is 99 percent buffoon and 1 percent priest
(thanks to the Roman collar he is wearing), warns the engaged couple that
premarital sex and use of birth control will land them in hell. The overall message is “it’s okay to be
confused as long as you are not inhibited”. Mature adults and enlightened
Catholics can take The Big Wedding
with a grain of salt, after all, you don’t learn catechism from such
movies. Nonetheless,
the film maker should have diverted some of the casting budget to a reputable
researcher so they could have portrayed Catholic traditions accurately. It is
just insulting for a Catholic to watch how irreverently they made fun of confession,
chastity, marriage and priesthood.
Even in a liberated culture, the presentation of
sex is too casual. For the movie, the act is merely comparable to having a few
drinks together and can take place anytime, anyhow and with any one – between
divorced couples who are in another relationship, between live-in partners who
are unsure if they are willing to commit their lives to
each other, between a man and a woman meeting for the first and only time. The movie presents devout Catholics who
believe in the permanence of marriage as bigots. While the initiative of the parents to help reunite their
daughter to her husband/boyfriend is commendable it is not enough to make the
movie morally acceptable. In spite of its
good intentions, the movie also has issues with (male) virginity and aberrant
sex acts, and treats homosexuality and adultery frivolously.
The movie should be restricted to adult viewers. If you have spare cash enough for one movie this week,
better reserve it for the likes of Epic
or Gatsby.
