2018’s Destination
Wedding, written and directed by Victor Levin.
Starring Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, and a mountain lion.
What is it about?
Frank (Keanu Reeves) and Lindsay (Winona Ryder) are invited
to Frank’s family’s wedding. Unhappy but stuck together for the weekend, they
find that their lack of social skills and borderline agoraphobia to be
fetching. As the bride and groom celebrate their weekend, Frank and Lindsay
celebrate a reunion of chemistry not seen since Bram Stroker’s Dracula.
Why is it worth seeing?
It should be noted that Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves
haven’t shared the screen together since 1992’s Dracula. I point that out, if only because the two thespians really
spend a lot of the movie together- virtually all of it, in fact. People who
have skimmed the summaries of Richard Linklater’s sublime Before trilogy could compare the fated by potent chemistry couple of Jessie and Celine
to Wedding’s characters, but
unfortunately what is missing (besides the quality of dialogue, chemistry, and
authentic settings) is the idea that the planet has other people on it worth
speaking to. Reeves and Ryder’s characters are so hopelessly solipsistic, so helplessly
narcissistic in their introversion, that there is almost no scenes, where
either of them (or together) are they seen actually having a conversation with
somebody else. It’s a decision that is decidedly odd for the wedding setting,
and even more so as a potential maybe-kinda-sorta rom-com, to have so much in
common, narratively speaking and not qualitatively, with My Dinner with Andre.
With literally no ancillary characters, the focus goes squarely on to the two players and their micro worlds of pity filled angst. For a project that is essentially a dialogue, the protagonists aren’t that likable. Fueled by machine gun dialogue that goes back and forth in a game of insults and then insight-lacking vulnerability, it’s too clever by half, for two characters who are too clever to not be insufferable. Eventually the jibber jabber starts to drone on, as William Ross’ music plunks on and on. Given its lack of energy, it’s both a wonder that the film is as long as it is (and feels longer), and revealing how short is actually is at 85 minutes. All of this is supplemented by the worst offender of this passionless romance- predictability. Everybody (or rather, two people) say no, while we know yes. Everybody should have just RSVP’d no and stayed home.
With literally no ancillary characters, the focus goes squarely on to the two players and their micro worlds of pity filled angst. For a project that is essentially a dialogue, the protagonists aren’t that likable. Fueled by machine gun dialogue that goes back and forth in a game of insults and then insight-lacking vulnerability, it’s too clever by half, for two characters who are too clever to not be insufferable. Eventually the jibber jabber starts to drone on, as William Ross’ music plunks on and on. Given its lack of energy, it’s both a wonder that the film is as long as it is (and feels longer), and revealing how short is actually is at 85 minutes. All of this is supplemented by the worst offender of this passionless romance- predictability. Everybody (or rather, two people) say no, while we know yes. Everybody should have just RSVP’d no and stayed home.
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