The premise of the film is actually quite original, although there are plenty of the stereotyped characters, acted with hilarity, especially Will Ferrell and Keir O'Donnell. The general story is that two wedding crashers who lie and manipulate their way to sex, end up with hearts after all and "fall in love." All of this in the background of course, as the jokes roll one after another. And just as the film starts to look like it is falling apart Will Ferrell shows up to safe the day. Yes, his character is disturbing and wrong, but hilarious. The film does a good job of showing how our culture sees marriage as just a game, that you can win or lose. It just requires some ingenuity, which may mean being ingenuous (maybe these words are related?). It also creates some good tension (a typical of the Hollywood formula) between cynicism (for the guys) and hope (for the women) about the possibilities of "true love."
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Sometimes I worry that I've lost the plot. My twitchin' muscles tease my flippant thoughts. I never really dreamed of heaven much until we put him in the ground, but it's all I'm doing now - listening for patterns in the sound of an endless static sea. ~ Conor Oberst
This site is now (mostly) an archive of my writing on film from November 2004 - May 2008. I will link to my articles elsewhere and post the occasional Twitter review.
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Looking for a particular film? Use the Index. I rank films from 1-7, looking for good and well told stories about what it means to be human.
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We are lonesome animals. We spend all of our life trying to be less lonesome. One of our ancient methods is to tell a story begging the listener to say-and to feel- ‘Yes, that is the way it is, or at least that is the way I feel it.’ You’re not as alone as you thought. —John Steinbeck
1 comment:
The problem with this film is that it's two hours long, normally the length of thoughtful dramas and spine-chilling thrillers, but is only a comedy. Worse yet, the comedy ends, pretty much, after the first hour (my take, the last REALLY funny joke is Vince Vaughn asking Owen Wilson did he "motorboat" it, in reference to...well, if you've seen the film, you know what its in reference to). The question then becomes, why does the comedy (or, at least, the really good comedy) have to die for the plot to continue? What does this say about the nature of plot lines and, subsequently, stories, in general? I haven't come to a conclusion, but so moved by the lack of hilarity and the pre-fabbed ending to this comedy, that I left the theater more reflective than soar-in-the-gut from laughing. A 5 on this film is generous and is only there, I suspect, because it takes on the themes of love and marriage, which carry a certain inherent weight.
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