Destination Wedding (2018) - Review
Originally published March, 2019Every once in a while I dip my toes into the genre of romantic-comedies, aka "Romcoms." The genre gets a lot of flack for obvious reasons, but even the cheesiest romcom can have something to it, or is, at the very least, sufficiently funny. Thus, when I saw the trailer for Destination Wedding, in which two extremely bitter, cynical people who hate each other upon meeting manage to prove that they're destined to be together, my interest was at least a little piqued, and not just because it was a reunion of love between the hero and heroine of Bram Stoker's Dracula (1992).
I'll admit upfront so that you can take my review with a grain of salt or sugar: I'm a little biased in this movie's favor. I like the writing, I like the direction, I like the characters, and I like the actors. Destination Wedding is not necessarily something you've never seen before, and it's certainly not telling the most believable story, but it's doing some things differently from its competition and it's mostly succeeding.
Pros
Dialogue is clever and funny, albeit, unbelievable and a little over-the-top in its cynicism
Keanu Reeves as the choice for the monotone miserable bitter cynic is a good choice
Winona Ryder makes for a solid counterpoint to Reeves
Dialogue only spoken from the two characters; extremely dialogue-heavy film
Film does not overstay its welcome
Small flourishes of charm are to the film's advantage
Ending suits the film nicely
Cons
Some character details either seem untrue or are not fully flushed out
The latter half loses some steam in terms of the humor of the dialogue
Plot & Thoughts
Destination Wedding has a subtitle that it discloses at the beginning and end of the film: "A Narcissist Can't Die, Because Then the Entire World Would End." This is the story about two self-obsessed people who hate the world and everyone in it. They both have negative opinions of everyone around them, regardless of whether or not they know any of the people in question. They're two people who think they're better and smarter than anyone else, which makes them immediately hate each other. Their mutual disgust for the world is also why their destined for each other.
Frank (Keanu Reeves) and Lindsey (Winona Ryder) are two people who are attending a destination wedding in wine country, California. They both seem to dread the idea, but feel obligated because Frank is the groom's brother and Lindsey happens to be the groom's ex-fiance. Despite their relation to the groom, they've never met or known each other before this weekend and, after a brief exchange of compliments at an airport terminal, it's immediately established that they hate each other for the reasons I already mentioned. Fortunately for them, they're immediate proximity continues to be forced upon them, not because the groom is trying to set them up, but likely because he knows them both to be miserable people whom he has no idea where to place.
It's in their forced seclusion and disgust for the very event they're attending that they find common ground and slowly come to enjoy each other's company, as they riff on everyone else around them or pontificate about the nature of life in the most sardonic and melancholic ways possible. Being something of a cynical jerk who prefers to look at things with preference on logic and almost a contempt for emotional tilt towards anything, the dialogue of the two bitter protagonists speaks to me on a different level. It's slightly unrealistic that these two people would talk the way they do for the entirety of the film, sure. However, in the defense of the film, I don't think realism is what the filmmakers are going for. Don't forget: Destination Wedding is a romcom. Romcoms are not exactly known for their believability or realism.
What I think makes Destination Wedding stand out in the romcom sea are the risks that it takes and the smart casting choices. While Ryder and Reeves have come a long way from their days of stiff performances in Victorian-era roles, if there is one type of character they both excel at playing, it's the monotone cynic. Reeves is not known for his acting range, but manages to be convincing and entertaining in the movies in which he just needs to be relatively quiet or just sarcastic. Ryder has gotten a bit more love due to her Stranger Things career-revival, but she slips right into the role of Lindsey, the ex-fiance who got stood up and can't get over it. Despite their stiff performances in Dracula 20 years ago, the chemistry they share in Destination Wedding is delightfully witty, scathing, sarcastic, and seamless.
If you find yourself immediately put off by the performances of the two, however, you'd best turn off the film and find something else because they're the only two characters that ever talk in the entire movie. One of the risks Destination Wedding takes is the fact that the two narcissists on whom the story is focused, are the only ones who ever get to say anything. No other characters get to say anything or interject; there are just a few scenes in which they're watching something and the voices from the TV's speakers is the only dialogue spoken by someone other than Reeves and Ryder.
I think it all works to the movie's credit. Much like the irritated scribblings over the scene title cards that appear, this feels like a deliberate choice on driving home the whole idea of the world revolving around these two. Even the camera shots themselves add to the experience. The shots tend to be long, without many cuts, allowing each actors to spout seemingly endless rants of large words to illustrate their point about bigger ideas to one another. They also don't move much, allowing our eyes to focus more on them in the frame for longer. All of these little touches, I think, are successful in driving home the alternate title of Destination Wedding and the hidden intent of the film. If nothing else, it demonstrates how this movie could easily be converted into a two-person stage performance.
If I were to call out the drawbacks to the film, it would be that I think that some of the humor starts to dull by the second half of the film, probably because their insults aren't as scathing anymore now that the two characters have started to like each other. I also think that the characters share some details about themselves like what they do for a living, but the jokes that are tied to those professions feel a little weak or underutilized. It just felt like a few character details about their origins or their work conflicted or were not entirely realized. If anything, I expected them both to be writers or critics based on their vocabulary choice and attitude, but maybe that's just the reason why I like it so much; this romcom was made for my specific niche audience.
TL;DR (Conclusion)
Destination Wedding is not the romantic comedy for everyone. If you want the usual heartwarming fluff or just something akin to a Hugh Grant movie, you're looking in the wrong place. However, if you want a more unique romcom experience in which characters talk like they're in a David Mammet film and roast everyone around them, including each other, as they slowly fall in love, you might enjoy your time with Destination Wedding.
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