The Big Wedding

Robert DeNiro, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, Diane Keaton, Susan Sarandon

The Big Wedding may be the fluffiest of "fluff movies" that I've seen lately. With an all-star cast encompassing everyone from Robert De Niro to Topher Grace, I expected it to be hilarious; unfortunately, the script was not great, and there was little-to-no character development, for the most part.

Don (De Niro) and Ellie (Diane Keaton) are preparing for the wedding of their adopted son, Alejandro (Ben Barnes) to Missy (Amanda Seyfried). Don and Ellie are divorced, and Don lives in their former house with his girlfriend, Bebe (Susan Sarandon), who used to be Ellie's best friend - until Ellie caught Don cheating on her with Bebe. Don and Ellie haven't really spoken for the past ten years, so things are awkward, to say the least, when the family all reunites. Alejandro's birth mother, Madonna (Patricia Rae), who is Spanish, is also very Catholic - where divorcing is considered a sin - and Alejandro asks Don and Ellie to pretend to be married for the wedding weekend, so that Madonna won't think badly of him and his family ... and that's when the fun starts.

I feel like every character in this movie was given a title - because that's pretty much all we learn about them. Topher Grace, Alejandro's brother was The Doctor and also The Virgin (he's a 29-year-old virgin), at least until he meets The Sister, Nuria (Ana Ayora), Alejandro's biological sister. Don and Ellie are The Parents (or The Divorcees, whichever you prefer), Katherine Heigl's character is The Barren Sister (she was trying to get pregnant), etcetera. Even though the movie was about Missy and Alejandro's wedding, we only have one or two scenes where it's just the two of them talking to each other, and it doesn't shed any light on their relationship at all. The film could have developed its characters more, but I think because there were so many of them, it decided to just give us bits and pieces of each.

Maybe see this movie. I may be being too generous with this rating, as well as my star rating, but I did laugh at a few things in the film. The movie is also rated "R" and really didn't need to be; there's a lot of swearing and one scene of nudity, which is how it earned its rating. A few of the funny moments throughout were in the trailer (example: when Sarandon, playing De Niro's girlfriend, asks who she should be for the weekend, and De Niro suggests, "my concubine?"), but a lot were not, which is always good to see. I'd highly suggest waiting to see The Big Wedding on DVD, though, if you are so inclined, because in my opinion it's not worth the price of an in-theater ticket, matinee or otherwise.

The Big Wedding is in theaters today, April 26th, and is rated R with a runtime of 90 minutes. 2.5 stars out of 5.

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