Crude, Forgettable, Repeat
Based on the 2012 French comedy “Plan de Table”, Love Wedding Repeat is the latest Rom-Com by Netflix released this week and had the potential to be quite the interesting movie to check out thanks to its “what if” premise. Boasting a mix between “Groundhog Day” and “Four Wedding and a Funeral”, the movie quickly falls flat with a poorly executed narrative, forced and repetitive jokes and awkward characters interactions. The story begins with Jack who has just spent a few days in Italy getting to know journalist Dina. After failing to kiss her goodbye, Jack has to leave and doesn’t see Dina again until three years later during his sister’s wedding. This will then be the main premise for the rest of the movie as Jack tries to take advantage of this second chance with the girl of his dreams. What follows is a series of disastrous and cliched events before the narrative changes and shows the audience what could have happened if the seating order had been changed on the “English” table. While the movie premise is something that has worked in the past, this time around the wedding settings and the “what would happen if certain things were changed” (or the butterfly effect if you will) doesn’t work thanks to awkward interactions between the characters and a profound lack of chemistry between the main two protagonists. Jack and Dina aren’t the worst characters here but the narrative doesn’t give us much to make us root for them. What hurts the movie the most though is the awkward and crude jokes that feel forced and don’t land very well. Humour is subjective of course but there are only so many times one can joke about the size of genitalia before you grow tired. Some of the actors do their best delivering their parts; Tim Key is worth mentioning despite some questionable kilt jokes, while Sam Claflin and Olivia Munn do their best with the lines they’re given. The theme of the movie is definitely an interesting one as it shows us how one small change can alter life completely. This is shown in the movie with children moving name tags around the “English table” and mainly with who ends up taking the sedative. This also reminded me a little of other movies like “Sliding Doors” or French movie “Smoking, No Smoking”. Unlike those movies though, Love Wedding Repeat fails to utilize this concept to its fullest and doesn’t offer up much that hasn’t been done better elsewhere. Given the wealth of other rom-coms available to watch, even on Netflix itself, Love Wedding Repeat is a failed attempt at delivering comedy or decent romance. With many awkward scenes and characters lacking chemistry, this ultimately feels like a missed opportunity. It’s a shame too as the “what if” concept is one that has worked in other movies and could have been really interesting here, especially playing on a clever wit or a different style of comedy. Instead, you should probably repeat watching some other classics instead of this one.
