Last Wedding

Lately, I’ve managed to watch a couple of Canadian pictures, which makes me feel good, I suppose, since I’m actually supporting the Canadian industry. Not all of the movies are winners, but most of them are quite interesting. Last Wedding is most assuredly one of the interesting ones.

What we have here is a raw, cynical comedy about relationships. The film contains sarcastic humor, graphic sexuality, and painful moments, and the message seems to be that relationships basically stink. The film is still fun, anyhow.

The film begins with preparations for a wedding between one of the three main couples. The man works for a roofing company while the woman is a wannabe country singer. They haven’t known each other for long, but seem prepared to jump into the marriage... although you wonder immediately whether the marriage is more about security and social status rather than love. The couple (most noticeably the woman) obsess over the more bureaucratic and social aspects of wedding preparation, and we never really see what made these two love each other. The only way they can make each other happy, apparently, is through sex. The woman is the sort who gets angry (as in throwing things angry) when the man says that he won’t be able to meet her parents until Monday because he had planned a fishing trip with his buddies. And all the man can say to his buddies about how great she is, is the fact that she likes horses.

Nevertheless, the two get married. And this is where things really start to get dark, because we don’t just see how grim the marriage gets, but we also see his buddies’ equally troublesome relationships. This after his buddies try to make the case that things are much better when you’re merely single and shacking up with someone.........

One guy is a university professor. His girlfriend is a librarian, who seems to be a down-to-earth sort who avoids the high-tech things. The professor finds himself the victim of the advances of a nubile girl in his class, after she reads him a poem called “One Stop Love Shop”. The prof clearly is thinking solely with his coarser regions at this moment, because he doesn’t think that the poem is just overheated, faux-cynical bullshit masquerading as erotic, but actually pants that it’s amazing! Of course, the two have an affair, but it only gets as romantic as having sex behind a dumpster, andmasturbating each other while talking about the greats of Canadian literature.

The other guy is an architect, who hates his job. The woman is an architect who gets a job for a high-class firm, and loves her job. The man passes himself off as a left-wing sort of guy, who rejects the big, bad corporations; he asks her constantly why the hell she would work for such people. Although, it’s apparent that his real problem is that most of her coworkers are men, and that... gosh!!... she is trying to fit in to their culture!!

What I find interesting is how the film doesn’t take cheap shots and make one gender look worse than the other. At first, you think that the marriage is a sitcom cliché..... the man is “rational”, while the woman is “mad”. But it is rather disturbing. She is totally insane, not merely loopy. She obviously wants to “be” something... she wants to be “married”, and “successful”, and if none of that works out, she flips out and acts crazy. Some disturbing moments include her scene with a music rep that she tries to impress, and, during a fight in which the husband, in frustration, breaks one of her precious ceramic horses, she hits him on the head with the remote control, proclaiming “Don’t f--- with my horses!”. This woman is clearly insecure with herself, and it’s more disturbing than it sounds.

The single men, who live with their girlfriends and avoid the whole legal commitment, aren’t any better, however. In this case, the men are the insecure ones. They think being single means freedom, but in reality, it’s freedom to act stupid and be oblivious to responsibility or the other person. The women are very secure about themselves, about their beliefs, about what they want .... while the men don’t see the women as real people. They either tune them out them, or try to control them and their feelings. The men try to hide or justify their feelings or beliefs, when all they are really doing is covering up their jealousies, fantasies, and insecurities.

So the message is that marriage doesn’t work, because the couple can’t communicate meaningfully and honestly. And regular relationships don’t work... because the couple can’t communicate meaningfully and honestly! Oh, happy day!!!

Some points:

There’s one thing I don’t understand: how did that guy ever become a professor? The guy is a complete twit.. he looks more like the type of lower-middle class guy who gets drunk with his buddies after a day at the construction site than the sort who would know anything about Canadian literature! Here he is telling the young woman that all you really have to do to pass courses is to show up for the classes... gee ,that’s professional.

I wish that we actually heard the married woman’s music... especially after all the comments directed toward it proclaim it to be the worst music ever made. Or maybe they just have a thing against Jewish country singers. Despite this lack of music, there are some funny/nasty moments involving the husband’s attempt to listen to the music (she keeps it a very guarded secret), and his later mocking of it (and the results thereof).

The script isn’t perfect, but it does have a cynical bite that I enjoy. The film isn’t exactly straight drama, but at the same time, the movie does not attempt to either remain funny at all costs, or to be serious for too long. The thing is, this movie is not light comedy, nor is it sentimental drama. This movie has a nasty spin, and I love nasty spins.
Last Wedding is one of the best Canadian films I’ve seen, and, while many may not appreciate its cynical viewpoint or its rawness, is surely a worthwhile rental.

Rating: ***1/2

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