text: December 2, 2020 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment
  "Don't give up on the crazy; that's what makes love love."
  Dennis Dugan's Love, Weddings & Other Disasters begins with a spectacular breakup during a skydive, which ends up sweeping a wedding party off a dock, which becomes a viral video that earns florist Jessie (Maggie Grace) fame as "The Wedding Trasher". Soon, she gets her first job as a wedding coordinator and is determined to make it wonderful for the couple.
  The wedding really isn't the focus of the story. It serves as the background for various stories of people falling in love. They include Lawrence Phillips (Jeremy Irons), an overly finicky caterer from whom Jessie has taken over for this wedding, and Sara (Diane Keaton), a blind date he's been fixed up with who really is blind; Captain Ritchie (Andrew Bachelor), a Duck Boat tour guide who has fallen in love with a woman he's only seen once on a tour and is searching for her; nerdish Lenny (Jesse McCartney), who happens to be the brother of the groom, and Olga (Melinda Hill), a Russian stripper, who are chained together as part of a reality TV dating show.
  Naturally, all the plans for the perfect wedding begin to fall apart, but when all the stories converge, we discover that it is not perfection that brings happiness, but finding the joys within another person that brings completeness to our lives together.
  The various stories are somewhat uneven, but the "Love Boat" style construction does manage to bring us some interesting situations and gags along the way. The film also includes some interesting and appropriate songs by Elle King, who serves as the Greek chorus bringing the stories into focus.
  It is said early on of Jessie that she is busy working on weddings rather than getting married herself. That gives us a hint into the target idea of the film, that we can often lose ourselves in our work in ways that keep us from finding the happiness of love. That is expanded most clearly in the story between Lawrence and Sara. In fact, I'd have been content for most of the film to be their story (but that may be in part because I identify with the age of the characters).
  The film is also a statement about the concept of not letting the perfect be the enemy of the good. The perfect wedding can easily be something that takes all the joy out of the celebration of love that should be the real focus.
  Love, Weddings & Other Disasters is showing in theaters (where open) and on VOD.
  Filed Under: Film, Reviews, VOD Tagged With: Boston, romantic comedy
  Finding Your Feet – Never Too Late for a New Beginning
  It's never too late to find a new outlook on life and love, at least that is what Finding Your Feet tells us. On the surface, this looks like a date night movie for the Leisure World set. But the wisdom the film imparts can be absorbed by people of any age.
  Lady Sandra Abbott's (Imelda Staunton) life looks rosy. Her husband is retiring from the police where he has risen to Commissioner and received a knighthood. They will have the time to enjoy life and travel. But at his retirement party, she discovers he has been having an affair with her best friend for the last five years. She goes to the only person she can think of, her estranged sister Bif (Celia Imrie) who lives a free-spirited life in public housing. The Odd Couple contrast between the up-tight and proper Sandra and her colorful sister makes for some difficult times, but of course, their time together will be healing for them both.
  Sandra isn't very fond of Bif's friends, but when she begins to go with her to a community dance class for seniors, she begins to lighten up. When she begins to warm to the working-class Charlie (Timothy Spall), the film shifts into romcom mode, which often works well with people of a certain age, as it does here.
  As one who is old enough to live in a retirement community, I can appreciate watching people of this age dealing with the struggles of falling in love at this point in life. I also appreciate the age-specific issues that provide the complications: including cancer, dementia, and grief. But although the film reflects issues that affect seniors more than younger people, in the end what it teaches is applicable for everyone.
  This is a story of second chances. Not so much about giving people a second chance as much as being willing to take the risk to find a second chance. Sandra's life, as rosy as it seemed at the beginning, quickly fell apart. Many of the friends she meets in her new world are all dealing with struggles of one sort or another. Yet as they come together to dance from week to week, they find something new in their lives. They get the opportunity to live with joy, even when there is darkness all around them.
  Perhaps what makes this age group so appropriate for a film like this is not that seniors are more likely to face having to start over. Rather, by the time you reach this age, you may look back and understand that life is filled with these new beginnings. Therein lies the wisdom of the film. It teaches us, no matter our age, that change can bring joy yet again.
  Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: Celia Imrie, comedy, dementia, Imelda Staunton, odd couple, romantic comedy, Timothy Spall, UK
  The Lobster – When Love is a Chore
  August 2, 2016 by Darrel Manson Leave a Comment
  In a somewhat benign dystopia (The City) all people who are not in a relationship must go to a resort for single people. They have forty-five days to fall in love and become a couple, or they will be transformed into an animal. Yorgos Lanthimos (previous film: Dogtooth) brings us films that have very strange settings and allows us to see what seem to be fairly normal people in bizarre situations. So it is with The Lobster. This is a very different kind of romantic comedy than most viewers expect.
  David (Colin Farrell) is recently divorced and must check in to The Hotel and try to find a suitable mate. You would think people would be going crazy to pair up, but there is such a lack of emotion in this strange world that we're not surprised that there are so many who fail. As David begins to close in on his end date, he manages to escape to the woods where there is a group of "Loners", people who choose not to follow society's rules about being in pairs and carry on a guerrilla war. There are rules to being in The Loners, including no flirting, but soon David is attracted to "Short Sighted Woman" (Rachel Weisz). Whereas in The Hotel such attraction would be encouraged, amidst The Loners, they risk being ostracized, so must develop their own way of showing affection.
  There is a wonderful supporting cast that includes Olivia Colman (Hotel Manager), Lea Seydoux (Loner Leader), and John C. Reilly (Lisping Man). David is the only character with an actual name; the others are defined by their roles or their flaws.
  For those unfamiliar with Lanthimos (and since this is his first film in English, that will be most people), the kind of quirky world he has created might be compared to the films of Wes Anderson, although Lanthimos uses a more subtle and drier sense of humor. Here that translates into an entertaining look at what it means to love and be in love in a world where loving is not so much a joy, but a chore. For those in The Hotel, love must be found to survive, but that means it is not something that we experience so much as something that must be accomplished (or perhaps even faked). For David it is only in the freedom of the forest among the Loners that he finally finds love, but then it is forbidden. David and Short Sighted Woman must forge their own way to finding the joy that love represents.
  The film gives us a chance to consider the expectations of society that we fit a certain mold in our relationships. If we aren't paired up, if we aren't a couple, if we don't meet certain criteria, we are outsiders. But then it seems the outsiders have their own set of rules. They expect conformity within their nonconformity. Trying to fit love into any set of rules may lead us to miss the kind of happiness that we find through the discovery of what makes any love unique.
  Filed Under: Film, Reviews Tagged With: AFIFest, Colin Ferrell. Rachael Weisz, dystopia, John C. Reilly, Olivia Colman, quirky, romantic comedy, Yorgos Lanthimos