Monday, December 11, 2006

 

The wedding crashers

Trying to spill off some pre-travel nerves, I did some cable surfing this afternoon and lighted on Picture Perfect, a late-90s Jennifer Anniston romantic comedy vehicle. Why is it that so many romantic comedies set up their climactic scene at a wedding ceremony – where one of the protagonist couple interrupts the proceeding with a self-serving “heartfelt speech” that overwhelms the misgivings of the other?

This element seems almost as obligatory to the romantic comedy as the falling-in-love musical montage or the pre-get-back-together-break-up-sadness musical montage.

To me, the most irritating thing about the interrupted wedding scene is the fact that the audience always listens to the “heartfelt speech” with such polite attention.

Come to think of it, the most realistic cinematic wedding interruption scene from this standpoint is the one in The Graduate. There, you’ll recall, the assembled wedding guests go running after interloper Dustin Hoffman and would-be bride Katherine Ross and chase them onto a bus. Had they caught up to the couple, it’s pretty clear they’d have torn Hoffman limb from limb. That’s what I’d expect wedding guests to do in that situation.

Comments:
I would expect the guests to just head over to the open bar. "What, the weddings off? Let's get drunk anyway."
 
yeah, I suppose it's the parents of the bride and groom who would be the main constituents of any lynch mob. It's their tens of thousands of dollars, after all.
 
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