Secrets, mensonges et ... mariage

When is this movie supposed to have taken place? I live in Detroit (or, ok, a suburb thereof) and this movie is definitely confused. First of all, Lena Olin wears a uniform for some meeting that looks like its from the 40's. The police car looks like its from the 70's. Gabriel Byrne's character acts like he's from the 50's and Clair Danes' promiscuous character is definitely suited to the 90's, with 80's hair.

The film was actually shot in a suburb quite a ways from Detroit that is known for having a large Polish community. That's about the only polish influence in the movie. Everything else is just horniness run amuck.

A horrible,pointless film in which the actors are way too good for the script, I was not surprised to see that the writer/director has done nothing else since. Let's hope her urge to create remains dormant and spares us another two-hours-of-my-life-that-i'll-never-get-back feeling.

If 'My Big Fat Greek Wedding' was 'Everybody Loves Raymond', then this was 'Married ... with Children'. In the Greek family, the bride was plain and overweight but made herself over, hoping to get a man before her biological clock ran out. In this movie, the bride looked hot even with a minimum of makeup ... though her mom looked like Kathie Lee Gifford and wore enough makeup for a much older profession than cleaning offices. The Greek family ran a restaurant. In this movie, the father worked nights in a bakery but it is never made clear whether he owned it. The Greek wedding was a major production involving hundreds of guests. The Polish wedding ... wasn't. I don't want to give away too much, but weapons were involved. I think they were baseball bats, but I'm not sure. The scene where those were used--that was memorable. I liked the performances of the actors playing the groom's parents, brief though they were.

Claire Danes did a wonderful job as the only daughter out of five children. She showed a real talent for sultry behavior, and her evil laugh early in the movie was something worth seeing. Lena Olin delivered an outstanding performance, effectively showing a wide variety of emotions, and her accent was beautiful. Gabriel Byrne had his moments as the father.

I had a hard time enjoying the movie, though, except when it was funny. Some of the humor was naughty, but that was okay. It seemed well done. The main problem with the movie was that there were good parts but nothing overall that made them fit together as a whole.

It was fun at times, anyway.

Polish Wedding is an amatuerish effort. Whereas a film like 'In the Company of Men" succeeds through an innovative idea, strong acting performances and passionate filmmaking, Polish Wedding has none of this.

Claire Danes is wonderful on-screen, yet miscast in most every film she's played. Gabriel Byrne continues a succession of non-descript performances in non-descript films. Good idea dressing up Lena Olin as a janitor, cleaning toilets in full makeup.

There's a nice screaming baby sequence in the 1st ten minutes that will drive you away quicker than the poorly used musical score.

Pass. Big time.

The thing that made this movie most compelling for me was the fact that it showed what work the characters do. With most Hollywood movies it appears that everyone is either independently wealthy or a FBI/NSA/CIA agent. With Polish Wedding, you went to work with the characters, and it wasn't glamourous at all, but it was real.

I'm surprised from all the comments on the lack of plot. It was a slice of life. Does your life have a plot? Mine either. That was another reason I really enjoyed the film. It was like living with another family for a short time and seeing how they live.

It was quirky and serious, tender and harsh and quite credible acting all around--save for Clare Danes. Her range seems quite limited.

I'm not Polish, nor Catholic (I'm an atheist), but I did think the things that happened in the movie made sense. I've read other comments that it's not how their Polish family was. Oh well, I don't think my family was exactly like any other family in the world either.

Don't watch this if you're expecting edge-of-your seat drama, steamy sex and car chases. But if you're in the mood for an intimate and fun look at a working class family, then this is one for you. I rank it nearly as good as The Sweet Hereafter for its realism.

My rating: 7

I have recently spent ninety of the most painful minutes of my movie-viewing life watching a film called "Polish Wedding". Apparently, this film was supposed to be one of those warm-heated slice of life tales about a colorful ethnic family living and kvetching in big city USA. Detroit, from the looks of the place, but I can't be sure. Plotless, pointless, and ultimately offensive, this film is a disaster. The first ominous sign is the opening credits. No one in the cast and crew seemed to be remotely Polish. This movie features a Swede (Lena Olin, doing a bad Natasha Fatale accent) an Irishman (Gabriel Byrne,even worse) and a sickly-sweet all-American girl (Claire Danes, who should be barred from doing movies forever). Having lived in Chicago for several years, and having married a second generation Polish girl, I can honestly say that the characters in this film resemble no Poles that I have ever met. The "Poles" in this movie are the same lazy, drunken, selfish louts that idiot writers have variously identified as Irish, Greek,Italian, Jewish, Spanish, and other ethnic groups in the past five or six decades. I guess it was the Poles turn now. I don't think it's malicious, I think it's just laziness.

But it's a real pity. The Poles have a rich culture that is worth making a good movie out of. I have to go now. My normally lovely, sweet-tempered wife is screaming obscenities and threatening to throw the TV out the window.