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The Wedding Party

1997, Movie, R, 90 mins

The Wedding Party: Review

Three talented mainstays of Australian cinema keep this flimsy wisp of tristesse from floating away, and Frances O'Connor and Cate Blanchett in particular appear to be having great fun with their roles. Just when bachelor Guy Jamieson (Richard Roxburgh) is about to throw in the towel, he meets the ideal woman, Lizzie (Cate Blanchett), while trying to locate the owner of an abandoned cat. He proposes marriage a few weeks later. But as the wedding day approaches, Guy can't stop thinking about his first love, Jenny (Frances O'Connor), a firebrand who rocked Guy's world and was in every way the opposite of calm, collected upper-class Lizzie. Despite their genuine emotional attachment, Guy and Jenny drifted apart due under the stress of living together day in and day out. Guy gets cold feet during the reception and dives deeper into his recollections of Jenny: their first meeting, his introduction to her eccentric family and a disastrous vacation in England during which they were drugged and robbed. Wrapped up in his misgivings about losing Jenny, Guy fails to consider that Lizzie might also be having second thoughts. As he muses about the fleeting nature of happiness, Guy wonders whether he should have tried harder to patch things up with Jenny. But if he's going to start his life with Lizzie on the right foot, Guy must bury his regrets about the gal who got away. Alexandra Long's flashback-laden screenplay is always in danger of losing focus as it juggles two time periods in the hero's life, but the fine performances ensure that there's always something interesting to watch. leave a comment --Robert Pardi