Before I get into that, I should introduce the movie. Since it snuck into 800 screens this weekend without a lot of fan fare, I don't think many people are aware of it. It's about a wedding. Table 19 is the very last table at the reception, where all the people are put who received pity invites. It's the reject table. Eloise (Anna Kendrick) was the maid of honor for the wedding until her boyfriend (Wyatt Russell), the bride's brother, broke up with her abruptly. She's joined at table 19 by a married couple (Lisa Kudrow and Craig Robinson) who are low-level business associates of the bride's father, a cousin (Stephen Merchant) who was recently let out of prison, a former nanny (June Squibb) of the bride, and...ok, I'll be honest, I completely forgot the last guy's (Tony Revolori) connection to the bride and groom. He's an awkward kid though. So that's the movie: a band of misfits bond at their table during an exceptionally long wedding reception.
Ok, back to the original discussion. The reason I want to call this movie 'precise' is because it's very exacting. This script is filled with clever callbacks and twists. From Chekhov's wedding cake to Lisa Kudrow being dressed like the help staff, there's a lot of the kind of detail work that I eat up. These are the things that someone adds to a solid script to push it over the edge to make it great. The reason I don't call the movie 'accurate' is because the core of the movie doesn't work. This group becomes a surrogate family far too quickly and without reason. And, if I don't buy how much the group has bonded, then all of their heart-to-hearts (there are many) play as insincere. The reason for Kendrick and Russell's breakup is not good enough (and makes Russell too inexcusably villainous to come back from). There's a lot of talk about Eloise being a train wreck who ruins everything around her, and the example of this during the wedding isn't 1) enough her fault or 2) all that bad. There's too much story to this movie and it doesn't move at an aggressive enough pace to fit it all. It's quite surprising that a script from the Duplass brothers, who are normally quite reliable, would be this undercooked. It's like they tried to fix the larger story points that didn't work by surrounding them with a lot of smaller points that do work.
I saw this movie for the cast. I could tell, even in the trailer that it was going to have some plotting issues. However, if the cast interaction was good, I was convinced that that could salvage all other ills. Anna Kendrick is charming as always. Because she's in this, it was an inevitability that I would see it. Whether I'd wait until I could rent it was the only question. I was surprised how disinterested the movie was in her as the lead. More often, the story would rather follow what the rest of the group is up to. She's stuck playing the straight women, and she's proven by now that she can do more than that. Neither Kudrow nor Robinson were playing to their strengths. They are a bickering couple but without the sniping humor you would hope for. Squibb is asked to be the emotional center of the film, which she is capable of, and if the character dynamics hadn't been so rushed, she could've been that. Merchant and Revolori were both cartoons, but kept being forced to ground their performances. I can see this mix of characters working if the story was better constructed.
Table 19 has the cast and attention to detail of a great movie. However, the larger story points and execution don't match up with those parts. It will still work for a lot of people because there's certain things that always work, context free: a big emotional gesture, sage advice from an elderly person, or a troubled couple finding a way to reconnect. Overall, it just left me wanting something a lot more polished.
Verdict (?): Weakly Don't Recommend
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