So, Love, Wedding, Repeat was always going to
be a movie I'd watch. The idea for this one is that the names at a wedding
table get arbitrarily rearranged, and we see how the different arrangements
change the results of the day. Simple, clear, fun.
Writer/director Dead Craig also wrote both the US
and UK versions of Death at a Funeral as well as a 2011 comedy called Best
Men. In other words, he's a fan of wacky movies in which family and friends
come together for a formal event where everything goes wrong. He's good at
making this kind of movie. Love, Wedding, Repeat has many characters.
They are quickly established. Most of them get story arcs and a happy ending,
if they deserve one. He has an interesting sense of humor. The jokes aren't
particularly clever. They don't even have easy punchlines to hit, but he's very
persistent with them. One character creates a competition then becomes obsessed
with comparing penis sizes with his girlfriend's ex. Another character isn't
just uncomfortable in a kilt. That becomes the crux of his story. Even the bad
punchlines get hit so many times that I started to wonder if they were actually
clever. It's not my preferred style, but I respect the effort put into it.
The multiple scenarios premise is a "have your
cake and eat it too" structure. You can have the crazy story where
everything goes irredeemably wrong AND have the happy ending. The big
failure of Love, Wedding, Repeat is that it really only shows those two
scenarios. In a 100-minute movie, the first 28 minutes are set up. The
remaining 72 are split into two extended sitcom length versions of the rest of
the day. There's a brief sequence which fast-forwards through the basics of a
half-dozen other scenarios but that's it. That is a huge failure as far as I'm
concerned. The fun of this narrative conceit is seeing multiple ways that
things play out. Which things happen every time? Which things happen most
times? Which things only happen once? Which things never happen? It's way more
entertaining if every single time Allan Mustafa's Chaz ends up depantsing Sam
Claflin's Jack. It's way sadder if Jack Farthing's Marc never convinces Eleanor
Tomlinson's Hayley to leave her fiancé. If we only really see two versions of
the events, there isn't nearly the impact. In other words, the time management
of this movie is poor.
The cast didn't really do it for me either. Sam
Claflin is way too sweaty in this. He's decent at playing charming (Love
Rosie, Me Before You) but he's not great with physical comedy or
landing a punchline. He has that Zac Efron thing where you can see him trying
too hard to get it right. Eleanor Tomlinson and Freida Pinto aren't as
comfortable in the comedy realm either. Olivia Munn is used to being funny, but
she has more of a straight woman role in this. Besides, she's always been
better as a personality than an actress. I'll admit, I'm not as familiar with
the likes of Joel Fry, Tim Key, Aisling Bea, or Allan Mustaga, so maybe they
were the UK comedy ringers brought in. None of them except maybe Joel Fry
elevated their material though. I could see how this movie with the cast of Table
19 could've worked a lot better.
So, no. Love, Wedding, Repeat isn't elevating
the form in any way. It owns its shortcomings though. It's an ideal empty
calories movie that is exactly what it promises to be. It's pretty much the
same quality as all the other Netflix RomComs out there (Always Be My Maybe,
Set It Up, When We First Met).
Verdict: Weakly Don't Recommend
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