Film-wise, what was the sweet spot of growing up? You get to pick your favorites the good and the bad. And Beautiful Wedding has earned a special place in my heart my favourite bad movie. It is the very definition of a classic so bad it is good film. I was captivated with everything in this… chaos. What is even more baffling about this film? It is both self-aware and utterly unselfconscious at the same time.
Beautiful Wedding is another movie from the world of Beautiful Disaster which was released in 2023, or as I like to call it, Watpad Present: Fight Club. I’m not joking, when I saw the trailer, all I could concentrate on was that this movie is Fight Club, if it was targetting teenage or young adult girls. The movie was released no more than 10 MONTHS after its predecessor’s theatrical release in the US! This is some Breakin 2: Electric Boogaloo stuff. It goes on with the romance between the two lead characters Travis and Abby, and more especially their honeymoon escapades, after getting married in a ceremony that took place on a drunken night, the couple cannot recollect. That is all you need to know because that is actually all the story and you need to watch this film with as little background as possible.
To what extent do love em’ The Room, Birdemic, and many worlds not made for cinema! Shoutout to the firmer one because it is the first one, where I feel like God, it’s my so bad its good film.
Listen, this is clearly one of the most entertaining time I had in a theater this year. I’m pretty much laughing through the duration of the film. I mean would say most 90% of the times, It’s for reasons that perhaps were not even intended to be funny or are expressed in an entirely different way than what they were intended to be expressed in.
Writing of this film is just, mmmm how do I say this. No words needed for it. Imagine a scenario where there are so many “so that happened” moments , it has those in abundance. As I have already mentioned, it has no plot; it’s just non stop gags. The whole film is actually almost comprised of inconsistencies, contradictions, absurdity, and lines that I doubt anyone would speak. Quite interesting actually.
But the best part, the characters, is perhaps the funniest. Most of the characters look like they are coming out of a coke binge and had just finished watching X for X minutes. And they are indeed. It’s funny, but this is perhaps one of the horniest shows or movies I have ever experienced. There is a perpetual feeling of sexual tension and frustration. It’s actually quite beautiful. It’s very similar to the whole Dirty Grandpa concept, where there are cheap sexual jokes all the time. It feels like there is so much vulgarity and indecency that it resembles a porn movie. Except there is no actual porn.
I am not going to give anything away, let me just mention a few things. Topless beach. Animation. Hot priest. Mariachi band. Chicken fighting. Wrestling. Cougar. An awkward love triangle. Lots of envy. And fortunes of Machismo. The film is also evidence that there exists a female gaze because most of the dominant male characters (much more than the countless female characters) possess an awkward amount of sexualisation stunningly beyond normal.
To the film’s merit it is true that there is some merit in it. This is a good film visually, it is well made and it has a couple of legitimate laughs. It is also great watching a movie that depicts both men and women as sexual creatures without any shame.
It is also rather unexpectedly progressive in terms of how they depict queer people. Not one gay ‘joke’, no one is ridiculed or embarrassed for their sexual orientation or preference. Apropos there are no more films like Superbad or American Pie where casual homophobia disguised itself as a joke.
I will make a special commendation to the cast. Each and everyone leaves everything in this film. There is an amount of something completely ridiculous to the point where there the ‘facepalm’ moments come thick and fast. However, all the actors are very good at what they’re doing. Travis Maddox, who comes across as a rather likeable character, is played well by Dylan Sprouse (It is the name that seems to belong to a hero). Although, how the character is supposed to look like, is rather unfortunate funny – with his childish impression of a ‘mouseenter here’ moustache, overabundance of sleeveless tanks and most inappropriate look of a baby ‘bad boy’ swaggering around everywhere. For this part, he must’ve been living on the couch for the past month because Barbara Palvin, his wife in real life, would have been shouting at him when she saw him in this film. I support all the ex-Disney actors playing adult roles, but this is over the top. One more star to mention is Abby from DGG’s Halloween remake and Palmer Abby whose character kindly wins you over too.
There is, however, one more film franchise that should be mentioned as a comparison. The After movies. Apart from the fact that the this film’s director worked on one of the After movies, they are very much alike in tone, indeed one can say that the idea of this film is even to ridicule the After films, however, Travis is a much more tolerable character than Hardin Scott (What is it with these names?!), and this film has a much better depiction of women and the theme of the relationships.
Moreover, I have to clarify one of my claims, namely that the film is both self-aware and unselfconscious at the same time. So, in brief, the aims of the film as well as the cast and the craft are self aware, but there is a limit to that awareness, and the script is unselfconscious.
What one gets from this movie is a happy feeling after watching a silly romantic comedy. What this movie tries to do, it does well. Unfortunately, there are a lot of hems suspected hams in the room, attempting to wink at the camera at every opportunity which clearly shows it is a bit self aware and self mocking. Also every actor here knows what movie they are in and they are clearly having a lot of fun with it. In a way, it reminded me of teenage crass comedies like Mike and Dave Need Wedding Dates or the Bad Neighbours. These films were basically adult cartoons, but they were not too serious. They were just meant for fun. Yes, i felt a little nostalgic. The film wasn’t what you would consider self absorbed where there were some touching and quiet moments.
Having said this, gags and scenes are so appealing that often it feels that self awareness could have gone further and the movie is almost naively unselfconscious in some instances. So yes the film’s tone is… different.
Oh, how I love A Beautiful Wedding. I love it for reasons that it was never meant to be enjoyed, but let me stop you right there! I’m buying this for cheap and will continue to frighten my friends with this for every bad movie night.
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