BECK AT THE MOVIES: 'Our Family Wedding'
Director Injects Fresh Humor into Tired Premise
By Jeff Beck
Special to Huntingtonnews.net
Richmond, VA (HNN) - Rick Famuyiwa's "Our Family Wedding" takes a tired premise and is able to inject it with the much-needed humor it requires in order to keep it from going stale. It's kind of like a mix of other films, taking a little bit from "Father of the Bride" and combining it with "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner," and while it doesn't get to the level of those films, it still provides several good laughs in the process.
Lucia Ramirez (America Ferrera), a Latino, and Marcus Boyd (Lance Gross), an African-American are deeply in love and planning to get married, but first, they must break the news to their parents. Lucia's dad, Miguel (Carlos Mencia), is a tow truck driver who spends his time restoring old cars. When Marcus's dad, Brad (Forest Whitaker) parks where he shouldn't, Miguel tows his car, thus causing them to have their first meeting. Of course, the two are surprised when they meet again at a dinner during which Lucia and Marcus planned to break the news. Once they tell their families that they're getting married, and after the initial shock, planning for the big day begins
Having only heard bad things about it before going into the screening, I wasn't expecting much from "Our Family Wedding," but ended up being pleasantly surprised at just how funny it was. After sitting through some sad excuses for comedies like "Cop Out" and "She's Out of My League," both of which either tried to rip off ever other movie in sight or crack sex and/or bathroom jokes, here's a film that finally lets the humor flow out of the situation instead of feeling forced.
Granted, not everything in this film works. They even have a sex joke or two which didn't need to be here. There are three scenes that could have easily been left out which would not have changed the flow of the film at all. One comes in the form of a softball game that really had no place in here in the first place. Another involves the dads at a bar. Last, and certainly least, a scene near the end of the movie involves a goat and some Viagra. The less said about it the better.
There are good performances all around, especially from America Ferrera and Lance Gross as the young couple. Even Carlos Mencia, whose stand-up comedy is usual unappealing, gives a decent performance as a father worried about his daughter's future. It's also fun to see Academy-Award-winning actor Forest Whitaker having a good time in a comedy like this. A lot of the humor here is very dependent on good timing, which luckily this cast has.
The film does waver in the third act a bit with the predictable complications between the couple, and again presents the question that similar movies ask: Will the couple be able to overcome their differences to get back together by the end of the film? But at least while it's going through these obligatory scenes, the humor continues.
It does borrow from previous movies like the two mentioned at the beginning of this review. You'll remember from "Father of the Bride" (either version) that a daughter brings a man home to his parents to tell them that she's getting married, and so begin the hectic plans to put together a wedding. Then there's Stanley Kramer's masterpiece "Guess Who's Coming to Dinner" in which a young white woman brings an African-American home to her parents to inform them that they are getting married. "Our Family Wedding" pairs similar situations while adding its own touches.
At the time of this review, it looks like I am one of two critics who actually liked it enough to give it a recommendation. It may be clichéd and unoriginal, but it accomplished something that most other movies in the genre failed to do: It made me, and a theater full of people, laugh quite a bit. It did this by not being composed of all lowbrow humor and instead taking the time to put together some funny situational moments along with some witty dialogue. We'll just forget about the goat. 3/4 stars.