Ceremony

Watchable romantic comedy stars the diminutive Angarano as Sam, the man with the plan to whisk his true love (Thurman) away from her fiancé (Pace), moments away from the altar. Unfortunately for Sam, Thurman's character has outgrown their once-brief tryst and sees stability and maturity in her imminent marriage, even if Pace is somewhat egotistical and high on self importance.

Not a lot happening here, with minor chuckles and melancholy moments the general tone, Thurman's towering height and obvious age, both dwarfing Angarano, who's seemingly behind the eight ball all the way. Thompson as his best friend begins to suspect a ruse when they're "inadvertantly" invited to the wedding, and the once strong friendship that has cooled over the years, serves as the film's dramatic baseline, not quite a bro-mance, but equally, something short of true romance. He also has a funny scene in which he naively pops a party pill with some amusing consequences.

Director Winkler never really seems to find the right tenor, lost amid light humour (predominantly from Johnson as Thurman's drug-addled brother) and pathos with little content to develop and only the natural appeal of Angarano and Thurman off which to pivot. Mature, low-key and likable but there's not a lot achieved (in my opinion the R-rating also seems excessive).

I watched this movie with my family after viewing the trailer. The trailer depicted the movie as being a road-trip type romantic comedy, and as a group we decided that it looked like a decent movie. Sadly, we were wrong.

Our big problem with the movie was that the main character Sam Davis (Michael Angarano) is such an a-hole that we couldn't engage emotionally with this movie. He's rude. He's a liar. He manipulates people. While he has the emotional intelligence of a 5 year old, its hard to imagine this guy writes children books, as he has no innocence and no heart.

I find it very hard to enjoy a movie where the main character is such an a-hole that you would like to shoot him yourself, and you are hoping throughout the duration of the movie that he does NOT get the girl. There was nothing "feel good" about this movie.

I enjoyed the first five minutes of Ceremony, where the main character is reading from his children's book in a library, and the camera slowly pans back to reveal all empty seats, except for one adult, who applauds enthusiastically at the reading's conclusion. It was original and funny, and I thought I was in for a good movie.

I couldn't have been more wrong. The rest of the movie is plagued with one-note characters, (mostly) uninteresting dialogue, and good actor's talents wasted. All of the plot points have been done before, and better (e.g. the lovelorn sap chases down the woman he loves who is slated to marry a jerk). Uma Thurman's fiancé is so blatantly obviously a jerk as to be a caricature (in an unfunny way), and it is unbelievable that an intelligent woman would see enough in this man to marry him.

The class differences at the resort is an old, tired plot device, as was the outdoor scavenger-hunt the host's family traditionally plays, which veered into the ridiculous.

I'll give one example of a poorly thought out scene. Uma Thurman visit's the main character in his guest room to talk, since they were old flames. Up to this point it has been established that the room is very hot and stuffy. Yet she walks into the room carrying a sleeping bag, then crawls into it during their conversation. A moment later in the discussion she says "it's too hot to talk about that issue," all the while buried up to her neck in the sleeping bag under the pretence of keeping herself 'safe' from her former flame (no, there was no sexual tension at all, they were just having an uninteresting discussion about their past relationship). The movie is riddled with head-scratching moments like this, as if the writer was also the proofreader and didn't catch errors in logic (or overdone clichés).

The best friend, who has been used by the main character finally leaves, which is the only believable occurrence in the movie. Then he inexplicably comes back! The only possible explanation for this was his attraction to the female caterer; I was hoping to see some dialogue between them which would have been a welcome distraction from the boring leads but she never speaks! None of the movie's problems are the fault of the actors, I blame the script.

CEREMONY – CATCH IT ( B- ) Ceremony is a quirky little movie about young guy crashing the wedding of the woman he loves. The movie is smart, funny and full of good performances by the lead stars. Michael Angarano & Reece Thompson's bromance sold this out for me. Their scenes have very dark humor to it. Michael Angarano hopelessly in love is something to see, he brings the madness to the movie. Uma Thurman after Kill Bill did something decent enough otherwise it's been long time she has appeared in something not mediocre. Lee Pace is weird and out of his box. The movie is quirky & funny but lacks big time in screenplay. The whole time story just stays from where it started. To be honest nothing change till the very last moment, and even in last moment you've to imagine that that's how it will end. Sometimes, I wanted to see big jumps or shocking twists in the screenplay, but it never happened so the whole time it stays on the same note from where it all started. Anyways, I won't say it was boring but I think it has the potential to be lot funnier. Overall, watch for its performances and overall vibe, it's enjoyable.

Uma Thurman was the SOLE REASON for renting this film--- none of the other actors are familiar to us, except for Michael Angarano (from The Forbidden Kingdom) in his first "adult" leading role!

The leads are competent, but you still wonder if the movie would have done better at the box office had Jesse Eisenberg hadn't backed out last minute (Angarano was supposed to play "Marshall", the sidekick).

Nevertheless, this movie reminded me of "Rushmore," even though the plot is more like "The Graduate." (If you've seen both movies, then you'll understand my analogy).

Max Winkler, son of The Fonz, has done a great job as a rookie director. He's got a great future ahead....

Finally, I have to say that Jake Johnson ("Teddy") really adds a "Hangover" dimension to this film, in a good way! He is only one of many quirky supporting characters who make this a lovable film....one you're likely to purchase rather than rent!