Out at The Wedding

I have seen all Lee Friedlander movies and believe that she has a particular style of doing crazy movies full of words and words. My only problem is that her humor is too American for my taste, but obviously I will always give her movies a try. This film is sort of a screwball comedy with a mix of old Woody Allen style that could please many as it’s entertaining and the story is not too much predictable, as has some unexpected twists (well, actually one unexpected twist for me).

Tells about Alex that “lies” to everyone about everything except to his good gay friend Jonathan that finds “delicious” all the complications generated around Alex screw ups. See, Alex is engaged to Dana, but Dana is Jewish and black, so she assumes that her southern father and sister will not accept him and she tells Dana that all her family died. When her sister gets married and Alex has to go to the wedding, Jonathan comes as her date only to generate the first of a series of misunderstandings that develop in expected and unexpected ways. What happens is that a guest misunderstands Jonathan that was saying that he’s gay and the wedding guest understands that Alex is a lesbian. What follows is more complications and complications until all the knot is undo at the end.

If you enjoy American humor you’ll probably laugh a lot, like many viewers state in their comments. If you do not, then I suggest you sustain almost half the movie as it gets really good when Alex sister comes to New York to meet her girlfriend, that’s a lesbian that Alex hired to play Dana (just in case you wonder in English Dana is a male or female name and obviously they play with it). When Cathy DeBuono that plays Risa finally comes to the screen things get really interesting and nice to watch for a while until you totally guess what’s going to happen at the end.

There are some known actresses in the lesbian genre here, not only De Buono, but also for a few minutes Jill Bennett and Julie Goldman, and when they are in the screen the story becomes a lot more interesting.

Performances are acceptable even when some characters are really annoying and not likeable like Alex and Jonathan. The exception is the male Dana as he has such a terrible performance that becomes at times unbearable the lack of chemistry between his character and Alex. Unfortunately these characters are essential to the story and makes watching them a bit uncomfortable.

Not a masterpiece but an entertaining movie, even when the first half of the movie was too slow for me and was not easy to reach the moment when gets better. Still, I know that many that read this blog could enjoy the movie, as did the audience of the 2007 New York Lesbian and Gay Film Festival where the movie and Lee Friedlander won the audience award.

Enjoy.