As La Cage Aux Folles begat The Birdcage, France’s Mon frères se marie has similarly spurned a Hollywood remake in The Big Wedding. What they share is familial tension, prejudice and misunderstanding played for laughs. In Birdcage, the groom tries to keep his bride-to-be’s conservative family from discovering that his parents are a gay couple. The Big Wedding finds the groom trying to keep his conservative biological mother from discovering that his adoptive parents have long been divorced. But that Big Wedding is derivative isn’t its undoing. Being scatterbrained is. And comparisons with the much funnier Birdcage aren’t kind to this occasionally amusing but tiresome retread.
Robert De Niro and Susan Sarandon play Don and Bebe, a longtime couple that reunite with Don’s ex-wife, Ellie (Diane Keaton) — who was once besties with Bebe — to see their adopted son, Alejandro (Ben Barnes), wed Missy (Amanda Seyfriend). Also along for the ride in this clown car of a film is Alejandro’s birth mother, Madonna (Patricia Rae), who has arrived from South America for the occasion with her 20-something daughter in tow. Katherine Heigl (The Ugly Truth, 27 Dresses) shows up as Don and Ellie’s daughter Lyla, who’s nursing a broken heart and hiding a secret that could have been the subject of its own frothy movie.
In fact, much of The Big Wedding could have been divvied up into feature-length light comedies, such is its propensity to throw all manner of tired subplots at the screen to keep things lively and busy. Don has to navigate no fewer than three strained relationships — with Lyla, Ellie and Bebe. (Interesting, in retrospect, how he seems to have no problems — or much contact — with his boys.) From the moment we see Madonna’s daughter, Nuria (Ana Ayora), we know that she will hook up with Jared (Topher Grace), Alejandro and Lyla’s 29-year-old virgin sibling. Along with the surface similarities to Birdcage, a crudely-staged dinner table scene recalls its much funnier counterpart in Wedding Crashers. Big Wedding seems intent on getting its built-in audience giddy with pleasure at the sight of manufactured rifts and preposterous revelations stuffed gracelessly into a 90-minute runtime. It piles on the romantic and familial strife — much of it strained and unbelievable.
Lyla is a bitch to Don, an attitude the movie doesn’t bother explaining. Realizing she could harm Alejandro’s relationship with his biological mother, Bebe voluntarily leaves, and then proceeds to get huffy and blame Don for what we can only assume is his acquiescence to circumstance. Of course these diversions will sort themselves out as quickly as they were introduced. More annoying are the revelations of sexual proclivities and relationships that are piled on for the sake of a few chuckles, even though those revelations feel false and forced.
That leaves the entertainment in the hands of a capable cast to make this journey worthwhile. And they are game for the thin material provided. De Niro is energetic and fit (we get a brief scene of him doing push-ups in the bedroom), and his comic chops are in good form. Sarandon, forever a striking beauty and irresistible screen presence, has more charm, talent and charisma than most actresses of any age. The Big Wedding is funny at times, but its sheer desperation and ungainliness overwhelm the laughter. For a light comedy, this is a slog.
This article appears in Apr 25 – May 1, 2013.