The Big Wedding (2013)
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Critics Consensus: The Big Wedding's all-star cast is stranded in a contrived, strained plot that features broad stabs at humor but few laughs.
Critics Consensus: The Big Wedding's all-star cast is stranded in a contrived, strained plot that features broad stabs at humor but few laughs.
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Movie Info
With an all-star cast led by Robert De Niro, Katherine Heigl, Diane Keaton, Amanda Seyfried, Topher Grace, with Susan Sarandon and Robin Williams, THE BIG WEDDING is an uproarious romantic comedy about a charmingly modern family trying to survive a weekend wedding celebration that has the potential to become a full blown family fiasco. To the amusement of their adult children and friends, long divorced couple Don and Ellie Griffin (De Niro and Keaton) are once again forced to play the happy … More- Rating:
- R (for language, sexual content and brief nudity)
- Genre:
- Comedy
- Directed By:
- Justin Zackham
- Written By:
- Justin Zackham
- In Theaters:
- Apr 26, 2013 Wide
- On DVD:
- Aug 13, 2013
- US Box Office:
- $21.8M
Cast
-
Robert De Niro
as Don Griffin -
Katherine Heigl
as Lyla -
Diane Keaton
as Ellie Griffin -
Susan Sarandon
as Bebe -
Amanda Seyfried
as Missy -
Ben Barnes
as Alejandro
Related News & Features
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Critics Consensus: Pain & Gain is Visceral But Uneven
– Rotten Tomatoes
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LoginCritic Reviews for The Big Wedding
All Critics (102) | Top Critics (31) | Fresh (7) | Rotten (94) | DVD (1)
It's not the sheer predictability of the ensuing frolics that's hardest to take, or even the dismal attempts at humour ... but the sheer misery of watching actors you once respected demean themselves in such utterly worthless fodder.
Barring a few off-color jokes, though, the movie feels like a Carol Burnett sketch dragged out to feature length.
It's tired and dated with too few laughs to justify the stultifying attempts at drama and the impossible-to-swallow plot contortions.
Looks great, some terrific ingredients, but when you slice it up, what a disappointment.
Sarandon, Keaton and De Niro mesh beautifully, fully convincing as a trio of old friends and carting in lots of characterization that would be otherwise lacking in Zackham's rote screenplay.
For all its surface amiability, The Big Wedding might be one of the more frustrating films of the year.
Some scripts can be saved by a good cast that delivers the material with as much chutzpah as possible. And then there are some that are simply unsalvageably dreadful.
Não é apenas uma má comédia; é mau Cinema.
The goofy characters waltz through plenty of offbeat situations, but that's not enough because quirky and funny are not synonymous.
What it desperately needed was more originality. I suppose Zackham thought that if he just got a great cast and sprinkled enough humor into it, then those would be enough to cover up all the flaws in the script. Unfortunately, he was very much mistaken.
Behold the unholy matrimony of hack-job romance and whack-job comedy. Witness the blindingly bleached marriage of house-porn and cocky Caucasian privilege. Suffer the union of former A-list stars and express-cashed paycheques.
Built on chaotically disparate tones and extremely broad jokes that never hit their mark, The Big Wedding is completely devoid of laughs.
Sinks to new levels of horrid.
At least somebody does fall in the swimming pool. It's Robert De Niro. Unfortunately, he resurfaces.
With De Niro inexcusably using what is for many people the single most obscene swear word, this is well off target.
An all-star cast very nearly goes down with the ship as filmmaker Justin Zackham (The Bucket List) indulges in relentlessly farcical silliness.
Big wedding? Big fat nothing, more like.
"Oh God, this is humiliating," trills Diane Keaton and she never said a truer word.
This is not so much Meet The Fockers as meet the shockers. The jokes are something old, nothing new, mainly borrowed and sadly blue. De Niro is a shadow of his former shelf, not so much Taxi Driver as taxidermy.
Disappointing, poorly conceived comedy that's both emotionally unconvincing and depressingly low on laughs, though the performances ensure that it remains watchable.
Pure claw-your-eyes-out cinema.
This is one of those farces you come away from thinking the French would have done better. Then you discover that the French have already done it, and better.
A frothy and harmless confection that squanders the on-screen talent.
You'll run out of appendages on which to count the clichés.
While it's nice to see talents like Keaton and Sarandon in The Big Wedding, it's ultimately frustrating seeing their talents wasted in Zackham's paper-thin excuse for a rom-com.
Audience Reviews for The Big Wedding
I like Cheeseburgers and I like Croissant but the thought of eating a Cheeseburger made with Croissant instead of a sesame bun makes me feel sick. The Big Wedding made me feel that kind of sick. Honestly, American films trying to be French Films just don't work. Americans can enjoy French and French can enjoy American (or can they) but trying to translate the same humour would need a script to be so re-written that there would be little point in trying. With The Big Wedding they tried and proved my theory correct. It is horrible.
MoreSuper Reviewer
**
Some movies have really good casts and they just don't work out. "Big Wedding" is one of those movies. Robert Di Nero, Diane Keaton, Katherine Heigl, Topher Grace, Amanda Seyfried, Susan Sarandan round out the cast. But even with all that star power, this is a very uneven, unfunny romantic comedy. It's basically about a dysfunctional family coming together for a wedding, and all their problems come to a head. Women will probably enjoy it more than the guys(even though Emily passed out and didn't care for it all). Worth a watch? Maybe a one time on Netflix. But not really worth any money.
Super Reviewer
It's never too late to start acting like a family.
Good movie! The one line that "The Big Wedding" straddles well is that between comedy and drama. The film is effective when it moves from funny jokes to touching family honesty and back to some more funny jokes. The story lines are very predictable, and sometimes the jokes are too simple and too wrong, but it tries to add in the right amount of drama, and ultimately, it should be entertaining to fans of the genre.
Don and Ellie were once married and have two children, Lyla and Jared. They adopted a boy from Colombia, Alejandro. Eventually they divorce, Ellie moves away and Don hooks up with Bebe, Ellie's best friend. When Alejandro is about to get married, he informs Don And Ellie that he never told his natural mother who is so traditional that they got divorced. And she is coming for the wedding so he asks them if they can pretend to still be married. Don and Ellie reluctantly agree to it and Bebe moves out who is also upset that Don for some reason doesn't want to commit.
Super Reviewer
I have 2 words to describe The Big Wedding, Chick flick. It seems to me like a mix of other movies with a disastrous result. It has a wonderful cast (DeNiro, Keaton, Heigl, Williams, etc) but not even this reason can save the movie. It has some good moments of humor but in general the comedy is just forced. In conclusion, The Big Wedding its not worthy to watch.
MoreSuper Reviewer
The Big Wedding Quotes
- Missy:
- My mother's a part time lesbian.
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