BEFORE: Yeah, this is another film that I normally would reserve for February, because it's about a wedding, and that means one central relationship, at least, so if there's relationship stuff or love or weddings, sure, naturally that all suggests romance. BUT if I need to move a film out of the romance chain in order to make my connections in another month, sometimes that just has to be done. Before the end of this year there are four other movies that I had earmarked for February that are going to have to be re-purposed, to get a chain that will take me to the end of the year - a couple of those I was a little unsure about putting on the February docket in the first place, so this solves that little problem, but also potentially creates another one, namely what happens if I can't fill February (and maybe half of March) with a chain using what's left on the romance list?
Also, how many films on that topic do I need to have on the watchlist at any given time, in order to assemble a chain of 28 to 45 films? I've got a little over 90, which seems like it would be sufficient, but then again, I never know for sure until I assemble the February chain, usually in November and December when I have big breaks in the schedule. To be on the safe side, and to balance for taking four films out of that month, I'm also tabling one film from the 2023 chain (it can be dropped, because it's the middle film of a three-movie chain with the same actress) and holding that for February, because it seems to have a lot of connections to other romances, while the four that I'm watching in 2023, not so much. Anyway, it's a problem for another day in November or December.
Lizzy Caplan carries over from "Extinction".
THE PLOT: Family tensions ramp up among siblings in the week leading up to their half-sister's wedding in the UK.
AFTER: I hate to drop a wedding comedy in the middle of a sci-fi chain, but it's what I have to do to keep the chain alive, it seems. I just checked, perhaps a bit too late, if there was another movie I could have watched in place of this one that would still link back up with the chain, something to connect "Extinction" to what's coming up, and there's nothing - so the problem seems to be the cast of yesterday's film just hasn't appeared in many other movies that are still on my watchlist, that's nobody's fault, really. I could add another 25 or 50 movies and see what else happens, but honestly it takes less time to watch "The People We Hate at the Wedding" and cross it off. I'm at that stage in the year where I don't want to second-guess my plan, but rather just keep reminding myself that I've got a solid path to Christmas, why would I want to mess that up?
So it's another "disaster wedding" film, God knows I've seen a lot of these, it's been a recurring theme ever since "Bridesmaids" scored so big at the box office in - geez, 2011 seems like so long ago. Since then, I've endured "The Big Wedding", "The Wilde Wedding", "Another Kind of Wedding", "Love Wedding Repeat", "Love, Weddings & Other Disasters", "Destination Wedding", "Jenny's Wedding", "My Big Fat Greek Wedding 2", "Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates", and then the films that came out before "Bridesmaids", like "Bride Wars", "Wedding Crashers", "Margot at the Wedding", "The Wedding Planner", "Muriel's Wedding", "Betsy's Wedding", "The Wedding Date" and "My Best Friend's Wedding". All of these kind of came from the same place, which is a screenwriter choosing to use something we all recognize, a wedding ceremony and asking themselves, "What could POSSIBLY go wrong?" in an unironic fashion. No, really, think of something that could go wrong, and we'll work it into the script, we desperately need ideas.
Today's film also resembles those Christmas commercials you see all the time now, which feature interracial couples and/or blended families because the people who work at ad agencies are very shrewd, they know that if they showcase families with different skin colors, they double or triple their chances of the audience connecting with the people in the ads. Sure, it's great to see multi-racial families because of inclusiveness and it breaks the stereotype of just showing shiny, happy white people all the time, but that's not really why they're doing it, they do it for the same reason that a cameraman will focus on the one black person who attends a Trump rally, they're desperate for mass appeal. So that's why "The People We Hate at the Wedding" starts with a complicated explanation for how this mostly-white American family ended up with a half-sister who's half-white who lives in the U.K., namely that her father, Donna's first husband, was both black and French, and when he and Donna split, daughter Eloise would spend 6 months every year with him, and 6 months in the U.S. with Donna.
Donna re-married a man named Bill, and had two more kids, Alice and Bill, who moved from Indianapolis to L.A. and Philly, respectively. Alice is dating her boss, who is also married and has a baby, while Bill has a boyfriend, Dominic, who seems to want to open up their relationship to a third person. Look, no judgments here but both of these relationships seem troubled, if not outright doomed. And what does it say about both Alice and Bill that they've settled into these relationships with partners who just aren't putting their needs or feelings at the forefront? Does this suggest that they've always felt "less than" because they're part of Donna's second, or back-up, family? Or do they feel like second-class citizens because they're working-class Americans, while their half-sister Eloise got a large trust fund from her father, and their father, Bill, is no longer alive? Really, there's a lot to unpack here, from a psychological perspective.
So when Alice and Bill get invitations to their half-sister's wedding in the U.K., neither one intends to go, especially Alice, because Eloise didn't contact her after her break-up and miscarriage, and she's still harboring resentment - however, she made a promise to Eloise when they were teenagers that she would serve as her maid of honor. Bill feels similarly disconnected from his half-sister, but then gets laid off from his therapist job for a month because he didn't follow protocol, so suddenly he's got no excuse for not attending.
Alice invites her married boyfriend, who at the last minute says he can't possibly leave his wife alone, but she meets a new boyfriend on the plane, who's charming and kind and funny and really into her, so it couldn't possibly work out, could it? What she really seems to prefer is the kind of romantic partner who treats her like garbage, what a shame that she doesn't have a brother who's a therapist who could help her with this problem. Oh, wait... Bill brings his boyfriend Dominic, who knows a very wealthy gay man in the U.K. who will not only give them a place to stay, but could serve as a third party in a threesome situation - which Bill isn't into at first, but hey, at least he's willing to try this if it will save his relationship. But then the question becomes, if his boyfriend doesn't want to be faithful, then is the relationship even worth saving?
Meanwhile, from Eloise's perspective, nothing really seems to go right with her family or with the wedding once her family from the U.S. arrives. Alice and Bill are both caught up in their own relationships dramas, her half-sister and half-brother are both going through break-ups, and that's taking the focus off of her. Also, her mother and her father seem to have rekindled their relationship, and that's all very weird, too. Look, your parents having relationships is always going to feel a bit strange, especially since they're older and you don't want to think of them as sexual beings. Even if your mother and father have always been together your whole life, it's still just weird to think of them this way. And getting back together after decades apart is also very weird.
Eventually, everything comes out over dinner, all of the resentment and hurt feelings over the years, some of it's par for the course, and some of it is special resentment that gets caused by seeing your mother marry someone else, or the fact that she gave away all of her dead husband's possessions without checking with her adult kids, or one sibling seems like she's the golden child and gets everything she wants while the others are struggling. All of these things need to be talked through, they're not going to solve themselves on their own, and that's what really rings true here. But before that, these issues that interrupt the bachelorette party and the wedding turn Eloise into a Bridezilla who breaks down completely when she realizes the candles at the reception aren't white, but off-white.
I'd point out that this film kind of leans into some of the unflattering stereotypes about gay men, how they can't stay faithful, but at least it also shows that straight people really can't either, so maybe it's fair and balanced in its own way, who's to say? And everybody's dysfunctional in their own way, everybody could probably benefit from some therapy, right? Like, across the board - but we all struggle and we persevere and we do the best we can with the relationship cards we've been dealt. Every relationship also has to come to an end at some point, whether that happens because someone cheats or because someone loses interest or because someone dies, it's bound to happen and we just have to all deal with it as best we can.
NITPICK POINT: Sure, if someone pays for your hotel room and that includes room service, I can see going a little bit crazy ordering breakfasts. God knows when we've been on cruises, we certainly took advantage of "second breakfast" when the meal plan was unlimited. But Alice orders SO much food at the hotel here, that it somehow goes beyond funny, into completely piggish behavior. There's just no way two people could eat all that food and still stay thin - it's like 30 breakfasts. And how does this not completely bankrupt her half-sister? What a disgusting waste of food...both in the fictional world and on the movie set.
Also starring Kristen Bell (last seen in "Idina Menzel: Which Way to the Stage?"), Allison Janney (last seen in "The Object of My Affection"), Ben Platt (last seen in "The Female Brain"), Cynthia Addai-Robinson (last seen in "Colombiana"), Isaach de Bankolé (last seen in "Black Panther: Wakanda Forever"), Karan Soni (last heard in "Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse"), Jorma Taccone (ditto), Dustin Milligan (last seen in "A Simple Favor"), Tony Goldwyn (last seen in "Murder Mystery 2"), Andy Daly (last heard in "Butter"), John Macmillan (last seen in "The Dig"), Julian Ovenden, Rufus Jones (last seen in "Stan & Ollie"), D'Arcy Carden (last seen in "Other People"), Brandon Johnston, Lexi Janicek, Milakale Kember, Jaxon Goldenberg, Emma Davies (last seen in "The Current War: Director's Cut"), Judith Amsenga, Jesus Revers Ortiz, Greg Barnett, Randall Park (last seen in "Ant-Man and the Wasp: Quantumania"), Pedro Minas, Suzy Kohane, Nerissa Bradley, Alice Brittain, Lawrence Russell, Davina Moon (last seen in "No Time to Die"), Emily Lloyd-Saini, Jemima Rooper (last seen in "The Black Dahlia"), Annie McGrath, Benedict Wolf, Sandra James-Young, Mark Kitto, Jonny Weldon, Lloyd Griffith, Rich Keeble, Mary Roscoe (last seen in "Enola Holmes"), Miriam Englebert, Lesley Ewen (last seen in "Narrow Margin"), Sheila Glass, Mara Huf, Philip Labey, Nathan Wiley (last seen in "The Commuter") and the voice of Adam Godley (last seen in "Nanny McPhee").
RATING: 5 out of 10 inflight movies (but "Paddington" was clearly the best choice)
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