Lune de miel aux orties

This film is a wonderful comedy, with glowing portrayals, a great comic atmosphere, and some deliciously insightful moments of human interaction. I wish that I owned it on video. Watch for Bea Arthur and Richard Castellano, they are simply marvellous. Highly recommended.

This is one of the funniest wedding pictures I have ever seen. The film pretty much accurately portrays a lot of the things that go on around the time of a wedding. Things like the mother of either the bride or groom about to suffer a nervous breakdown, one couple on the verge of a divorce while the brother (or sister) is getting married or one of the groomsmen trying to make it with one of the bridesmaids. The writer must have been to a lot of weddings to really come up with this great slice of life comedy.

As for the cast, Bonnie Bedelia and Michael Brandon are perfectly cast as Susan and Mike, who seem to be the only ones that are happy while everyone else isn't. Cloris Leachman (a few months before taking the role of Mary Richard's annoying and overbearing neighbor Phyllis) is also great as Susan's mother, who is oblivious to her husband's philandering. Also, in a very quiet performance, Dianne Keaton makes a solid debut as Mike's soon to be ex-sister-in-law, who show's up even though she know's she has to face her in-law's as well as her estranged husband. However, Bea Arthur (a couple of years before her career defining role as overbearing liberal Maude) steals the show as Mike's overbearing, devoutly Catholic mother. This film is definitely a sleeper.

Quite a few reviewers accuse this film of being dated. But when I first saw it in 1970, it already defied that idea because it saw through the zeitgeist. Rather than getting mired in passing fads and causes, the writers fondly made light of the clash of generations. Writers Joe Bologna and Renée Taylor exaggerate the tensions and conversations in the two families of the engaged couple, as well as the period fashions and furnishings, just enough to make the film entertaining, but also witty and touching.

The movie spares nobody. Hidebound Italian Catholics, bourgeois suburbanites, a macho ex-marine married to a feminist, an usher seducing a bridesmaid, counterculture cohabitation-- the superb cast delivers it all. Superficially, they all represent stereotypes, but-- and here's the trick-- they also defy simplistic categories they are unique individuals, and you cannot predict what any of them will say or do next. No Archie Bunkers or Meatheads here.

It's not Balzac, but it is a classic human comedy realized as popular art, two families afloat in the late '60s, when parents thought they were losing their offspring, because their kids were questioning traditions. But those kids were questioning ingrained habits, not traditional virtues, the deep values and ethics that form our larger society. "No gap here," is the refrain of Gig Young, a buffoonish patriarch determined to keep everybody happy-- but ultimately he's right. They all have more in common than they know, and by the time the young couple is married, we don't have to be told that their marriage will be every bit as complicated as their parents' are. The movie already told us.

If the movie has a core, it's Richard Castellano's speech to his elder son who is about to divorce his wife, an unthinkable first in the family. Castellano (in the same role he played in the original Broadway play) got an Oscar nomination, and he's wonderful throughout, but especially delivering the speech that becomes the spoken soul of the movie. It includes: "We're all strangers. But after a while you get used to it. You become deeper strangers. That's a sort of love."

Classic comedy with legendary comedians (e.g. Stiller and Meara.) Imagine holding up and being topical for more than 35 years! While the superb writing as mentioned holds up fantastically, the 60's style also adds to the overall pleasure of this movie. Do you get the feeling I like this flick! Do yourself a favor and take the time to watch this when you get the opportunity. Check out the cast and see just how amazing an impact this movie had - Bea Arthur year before being cast as Maude in All in the Family (Conrad Bain in small role, to be linked as Maude's neighbor within a couple of years of the movies release.) And the casting director, was he prophetic or what, see how many appeared for the first time in a movie here, Diane Keaton of course, but how about Sly Stallone as an extra, Jerry Stiller, etc, etc.

One of the finest ensemble comedies ever. A first rate cast delivers warmth and tenderness to Joseph Bologna and Renee Taylor's play about marriage, infidelity and the true meaning of love. Young, Arthur and Castellano are especially marvelous. Castellano also starred in the stage version of the play.