The Big "Wedding"

I'll start off by taking you back in time. Remember how, in an earlier column, I discoursed upon the fact that I was stuck between buying one of two DVDs--namely, "The Big Wedding," featuring DeNiro and Susan Sarandon and Diane Keaton, and the latest Wayans-clan cinematic parody "A Haunted House"? And how I ultimately wound up purchasing the DVD of "Morning Glory," starring Keaton, Harrison Ford, and Rachel McAdams, which, if you'll recall, I dealt with in that same column? Well, good news: I was recently able to pick up the DVD of "Wedding." And I want to say right here and now that it was damned well worth the wait. "Wedding"--which I have seen four times now, once on the large screen, three times on my always, always trustworthy DVD player--is, let me say it loud and clear, a smashingly good family comedy, having the advantages of stylish and finely-honed direction, funny and greatly humanistic writing, and, last but by no stretch of the imagination least, precise and well-thought-out performances. "Wedding" is a relatively brief film, clocking in at 90 minutes, but even considering its relatively short running period, the picture genuinely speeds along, causing you to not care a crap about time. To the flick itself... Our story begins with Ellie Griffin (Keaton) walking, with her bags in hand, up to the house owned by her longtime ex Don (DeNiro) and, now, his new lady Beatrice ("Bebe," Sarandon). As Ellie trods on, we hear Don, in voice-over, give us the lowdown concerning his and Ellie's history together ("There's an old expression that marriage is like a phone call in the night: First you get the ring and then you wake up"). She walks on, stops when she gets to a side door, gets the key from the place it always was when she lived there, and enters. When she does, she discovers that she's arrived at what is in effect an inopportune time, for out come Don and Bebe, arguing regarding their having sex (Don: "What came first, the Catholic church or cunningulus?"). Eventually Don wins the argument, as he lifts a highly-willing Bebe upon the counter and pulls down her panties (Bebe, laying down upon said counter, smiling expectantly: "Oh, Donny...You are such a slut." Don, head positioned between Bebe's legs, grinning also expectantly: "Lucky girl"). However, Don's ecstasy is short-lived as Bebe sees Ellie standing off in the background--causing Bebe to quickly close her legs, hitting Don in the process. Don and Bebe sputter and stammer, fulsomely attempting to recover themselves, and greet Ellie properly (Bebe to Ellie: "You look so...so..." Don: "Unexpected"). As Don is taking Ellie's bags upstairs to her old room, she, and we, get the lowdown regarding Don's new life (Ellie: "[Bebe has] got you on the wagon?" Don: "I can't sculpt worth a fart, but they [at his psychiatrist's office] give me a lollipop every time I leave the office"). We cut to the upcoming newlyweds, Missy and the Griffins' adopted son, Alejandro (Amanda Seyfried and Ben Barnes) sitting in front of the rather pompous Father Monighan (Robin Williams) and hearing his frankly tedious judgments as to what makes a marriage work (After hearing several minutes of this, Alejandro, in his native tongue, asks him: "Why don't you take your half-a-brain, and shove it up your-?" Missy, however, gives him a good, hard kick in the shin just in time). The Father continues to lay out for the aforementioned couple as to how couples should interact, to Alejandro's dismay (Monighan: "Relationships between consenting adults should remain the business of the parties themselves. And the church." Alejandro: "I guess [Missy and I] are going to hell"). Next we go to Griffin daughter Lyla (Katherine Heigl) showing up at the hospital where her brother, Jared (Topper Grace), is a doctor. Being essentially the uptight type--and having had her husband flat-out leave her--Lyla sits in the waiting room and begins to smoke; however, she's soon slapped down by another visitor ("Are you freaking KIDDING me? We're in a HOSPITAL!"). Lyla turns and sees rows upon rows of newly-born babies--which freaks her out and she faints right there on the spot. When she comes to, the first person she sees is this quite attractive young nurse, Jane, cheerily telling her: "THERE you are!" Soon after, in comes Jared, facetiously enquiring: "What kind of a doily passes out in the Daddy's room?" They exchange brother-sister dialogue, and Lyla, along with the rest of us, finds out that Jared's longtime virginity is quite a big deal at the hospital ("Now they [at the hospital] have an un-virgin pool going," Jared tells Lyla). All the while Lyla is in a gigantic tizzy over the family reunion ("Headaches, vomiting. And I haven't even seen Dad yet"). We're then returned to the hacienda Don and Bebe share and, before long, we see Ellie and Bebe going headlong down Memory Lane concerning the kids' growing up (Bebe on the painter who wanted to paint over where the records of the offspring was officially marked: "I had my knitting needle to his throat when Donald pulled me off him") and on Don's very long history of thoughtlessness (Bebe: "He doesn't exactly backstroke through the deep end of the sensitivity pool"). We go forward. Next we witness the entire family gathered at this one restaurant. First we see Lyla and Jared enter, with the former offering highly pointed commentary regarding Missy's parents ("They're freaking out because they're gonna have beige grandkids"), then they warmly greet Missy and Alejandro, then all four go inside and proceed to the family table, where Don, Ellie, Bebe, and the O'Connors (Missy's parents, Christine Ebersole and David Rasche) are already seated and are waiting for them. With everybody at last together, Missy discloses where she and Alejandro are going to honeymoon (Vietnam and Cambodia), then, after some prodding, Lyla reveals to them that she and her hubby have broken up ("We were fighting all the time and it was really hard..."). The memory of it all proves to be too much for our Lyla to bear, so she bolts from the table. Next we view her sitting upon the diving board above the outside pool (and showing off luscious long legs and beautiful bare feet), in time with Dad Don coming out onto the board to sit with her. Lyla starts off being intensely resistant to his fatherly concern ("I know we're supposed to do this whole father-daughter 'Kumbaya'-stick thing, but it just doesn't work that way") and continues along that line, winding up by forlonly diving feet first into the pool. We're then switched to Ellie and Alejandro moving along together side-by-side getting food and he griping about how his biological mother, Madonna (Patricia Rae, whose character will turn out to be a very major player in the film), wants he and Missy to participate in a formal ceremony in a church and Ellie urging him to just shut up and go along ("It's MARRIAGE...It's COMPROMISE, one down, 2.999 million to go"). Finally, however, with Don still out upon that aforementioned diving board--and struggling to keep from falling off--Ellie runs out and gives him the bombshell news: Madonna, who will be showing up for the wedding in person, is one of those uber-devout, by-the-Good-Book Catholics who still see divorce as a mortal sin and, consequently, perceive Don and Ellie to be above committing said sin. Thus for the period Madonna is with them, they have to pretend that they' re still married--news that causes Don, fully taken aback, to fall off the board into the pool. We go to: The next morning, with the whole family, Bebe included, around the outside dining table digesting the aforementioned news bulletin. Bebe asks if Don and Ellie are still wed, what does that make her, and Don replies: "My concubine?" The ever-sassy Lyla gives her take on the matter ("I thought MY life was a shitstorm"). And then we see Bebe, her bags fully packed, preparing to take a leave of absence during Madonna's visit and Don fervently attempting to dissaude her (Don, seizing Bebe's bags: "This is all very dramatic..." Bebe, grabbing the bags back: "Oh, put a sock in it, Donald") and, afterward, rebuffing Alejandro's entreaties to stay ("Just consider this my wedding present, OK?"). At last zero hour arrives: Madonna, accompanied by her gorgeous, ponytailed, bespectacled daughter Nuria (Ana Ayora), gets out of the cab, greets Alejandro, and is introduced to Don and Ellie. After some introductory small talk--which Alejandro has to translate for Madonna, as his biological Mom speaks no English--Madonna enquires as to why Don's nose is bloodied (before her cab arrived, he and Ellie got into a verbal tiff during which he dissed Ellie's mother and, for that, she let loose with a good, hard right). Don's response: "No English, huh? My wife is one of the great cunts of the 19th century." Moving forward. We witness Madonna looking at the quite sexually graphic statues Don has sculpted and not being at all pleased with them (re: she's very much a Catholic). She makes an obviously disapproving remark and Alejandro translates it to Don as: "She thinks you're a serpent." She continues to make statements that are obviously negative about Don but that which Alejandro puts a positive spin upon. Our hero, though, isn't buying into any of it ("I know she's not saying something good about me"). Before long, Madonna announces her desire to see Father Monighan, a request to which Don agrees ("It's possible [Monighan's] hangover's worn off by now"). Meanwhile, Jared discovers Nuria down by the lake, her lustrous hair now around her shoulders, her glasses off, and her scrumptious bare feet caressing the water. They start to become close (Nuria mentions that Alejandro went to Harvard and Jared claims that he did also, "[i]n that I drove him there," which causes her to laugh affectionately and to tell Jared, also affectionately: "You're very funny"), then, completely surprising Jared, and us, she gets bare-ass naked and dives in the lake (Arising from out of the water, she enquires, also knocking him, and us, for a loop: "You will show me around?...And you will make love to me, also?"). Next: We're taken to the inside of Father Monighan's church, where, at Madonna's insistence, the whole family--meaning Don, Ellie, and Alejandro--go through confession. Madonna, for her part, is quite fervent and emotional in her confession (as she's speaking in her native language, Monighan can't decipher a word she's saying). Don, on the other hand, is very much down on the entire business ("Forgive me, Father, for this is bullshit"; later, when Monighan offers a quote from Oscar Wilde in order to, so is the intent, ease Don through the confession process, the latter responds that Wilde "used to make whoopsie with altar boys"). And even Ellie gives the good Father a backhanded compliment: "You know, you're not as dumb as Don says you are." Following is a gathering of all the principals, Madonna, Nuria, and the O'Connors included, at this mega-pricey restaurant, where Missy greets Madonna and smilingly tells her, in her native tongue: "Before this night is over, it is my intent to get your blessing..." There's a pause while Alejandro whispers something in his natural-born mother's ear, then the latter tells Missy--in English--"You have my blessing." During the meal itself, Madonna comes down hard on daughter Nuria for showing so much cleavage. Nuria's reply: "I'm twenty, I have a beautiful body, and I'm on vacation." Later, Madonna asks why the wedding will take place at the Griffins' house rather than at the O'Connors'. Answers Missy: "[My Dad] has to plead poverty because he's being investigated for stock fraud." And the night's sauciness continues. Ellie at one point takes Nuria--who previously reached underneath the table, unzipped Jared's pants, and fondled his manhood--aside and winds up giving her this advice: "[T]he thing to remember is that men are like pumpkins: The good ones are either taken or they've had everything scooped out of their heads with a spoon." During the drive back home, our girl Lyla is asked if she thinks her ex will show up at the wedding. Responds Lyla: "He does, I'll tell him to fuck the fuck off." Going on: While Missy and Alejandro are riding along in their car (he's driving), he raises the possibility that the two of them can just elope and get the whole getting-married thing over with in a jiffy. Missy, however, hangs tough ("You won't tell one little white lie to a priest you'll never see again but you'll make a complete farce of our wedding?"). Back at the house, Ellie bumps into Jared in the night and he upbraids her for, in effect, jeopardizing his chance to score with Nuria ("I can't believe I'm being cockblocked by my own mother"). Ellie, for her part, was going to her own room but Madonna's catching her in the hallway certainly, definitely makes that not an option: She has to go into her "husband" Don's room. When she does, he greets her yet her response is most assuredly sardonic ("The temptation was more than I could stand"). And, ironically enough, they wind up going at it in Don's bed with all the fervor--and all the noisiness--of an honestly married couple. We proceed to the next morning. We see Bebe marching upon the scene followed by her catering staff and her proclaiming: "We are going to cater the shit out of this [wedding] thing whether [the Griffins] like it or not." Meanwhile our gal Lyla and her Dad are having a meeting of the minds, so to speak (Lyla to Don, admiring an especially appealing sculpture of his: "How is it you make something so beautiful and yet be such a complete douche bag?"). It's here where Lyla drops a bombshell of her own: She's expecting, but she stauchly refuses to get back together with her ex because of it. Having gotten things out in the air, father and daughter part company, and the former approaches Bebe, who is quite cool to him ("You kmow, if I were talking to you, I'd ask you what happened over there [with Lyla]"). Then we're taken back to Jared and Nuria, the former making his move on the latter by serenading her accompanied by his guitar ("There's not a lot of words that rhyme with 'Nuria'/But I want to reassuria/That I will try not to be prematuria"). And "Wedding" marches on, with Monighan finally marrying Missy and Alejandro in a VERY private ceremony--just the three of them--Jared and Nuria at last making it in the sack, and, when Madonna finds out that Don and Ellie are divorced and that her own son never told her, Madonna asking him: "Did you really think I was that inflexible?" And telling him about how, when she met his father--who was the mayor of the city she lived and worked in--he was married and his then-wife came to her apartment in a campaign to get her to stop seeing her then-husband--culminating in Madonna's saying to Alejandro: "You're not the only one who lies to protect his family." When he expresses surprise that his Dad wasn't, as his biological Mom had always said he was, a bean farmer, Madonna lovingly pats his cheek and, lovingly also, tells him: "You were always so gullible." The picture ends with Don, again in voice-over, saying, to Lyla's newborn daughter, Mary Jane: "Your grandmothers [Ellie, Bebe, and Madonna] are all nuts." So that's "The Big Wedding"--in all, a very funny, greatly superior cinematic comedy. Justin Zackham's writing provides a boatload of wholly humorous characters who have wholly humorous dialogue. Zackham's direction--he was also one of the producers--gets right to the heart of every scene. And all of the performances hit the bulls-eye (fun truth here: "Wedding" marks a reunion for DeNiro and Williams, who first worked together in the classic Penny Marshall-directed film "Awakenings"), with Sarandon and Heigl deserving of special nods. Concerning Sarandon, the acting super-legend Humphrey Bogart was once asked why he so admired the other acting super-titan Spencer Tracy. Bogart's reply: "Because you can't see the wheels turning." That's the way it's always been with Sarandon. Starting with her breakout cinematic portrayal in "Thelma and Louise," Sarandon has been an actor who, when working, has never shown any evidence of "technique," has always been absolutely unaffected, has always been so natural that you actually come to believe that you're seeing the real and true person up there on that screen. And she displays that skill in triplicate in "Wedding." Out of all the players in "Wedding," as good as they are, she's the one who has the most sincerity, who exhibits the most human qualities. Indeed, her acting in "Wedding" is so magnificently heartfelt that it easily makes us forget that, along with her then-common-law husband Tim Robbins and the longtime actor Richard Gere, she basically hijacked her time on the Academy Awards, along with said fellows literally holding us captive, literally force-feeding us political views. In regard to Heigl, as skillful as all the other "Wedding" players are, she's the one who, other than Sarandon, most displays evidence of an inner emotional/psychological life, whom, again, other than Sarandon, we feel for the most. Clearly, Heigl has grown up from her TV-doctor past and has become a fiercely agile and fiercely stylish light comedian (Actually, she had somewhat of a filmic career early on, portraying Gerard Depardieu's enticingly nubile, adolescent-beach-bunny daughter in "My Father the Hero." In no way did that role, as sexy and as appealing as she was in it, herald the loose-limbed charm and pencil-sharp intelligence she plainly shows in "Wedding"). It was "Today" hostess Hoda Kotb who dedicated her huge-selling personal/professional memoir "Hoda: How I Survived War Zones, Bad Hair, Cancer, and Kathie Lee" "to anyone, like me, who's made God bust a gut." It's fully safe to say that "The Big Wedding" will make anybody who sees it--up to and including the Almighty--"bust a gut."