“The People We Hate at the Wedding” (2022) is Odd and Entirely Forgettable (Part II of II)

(Continued from Part I)

Take the scene where Eloise, Alice and other bridesmaids hold a bachelorette party on a boat in the London river. If you’ve ever seen an unfunny comedy before, you can see the payoff coming a mile away.

Or take Paul. He’s going to the wedding with his boyfriend Dominique (Karan Soni), and they’re staying at a friend of Dominique’s. The ongoing gag throughout is that the host wants a threesome even though Paul doesn’t. The payoff is not only predictable (yes, they end up in a threesome), but also painfully unfunny (Paul ends up in his knees and treated like a furniture).

Most sadly, these aren’t even the worst scenes; at least they had (an attempt at) a payoff. No, the dishonor of the worst goes to the scene where the three are driving down a country road, go off the track, and back into a cow. That’s the entire scene. I confess, by this part of the film I wasn’t expecting much, but even I couldn’t have imagined that a car hitting a cow was the payoff.

All this is to say that this movie’s sense of humor isn’t even at a high school film project level. But the question is, could this have worked as a drama?

It’s an odd question to ask in such an inept film, but I’m compelled to ask it because, when the film isn’t trying to be funny, I dare say that it’s watchable.

The not-meant-to-be-funny scenes are quite numerous. I won’t give away the plot (not that you’d care), but there’s a good reason Eloise didn’t show up after Alice had a miscarriage and an even better reason Donna wanted to move on from the dead husband. The scenes of these big reveals and the subsequent make-up between the warring family members aren’t cinematic masterpieces, but they’re Oscar material compared to the so-called comedic scenes.

For a movie that took so much effort in setting up the characters, it seems a waste to not dive deeper and flesh out what they’re going through. I couldn’t help but think, maybe instead of this movie trying to be a comedy with occasional dramatic moments, it should have been a drama with occasional comedic relief.

Or maybe I’m giving the filmmakers too much credit, since there’s no real sign that any of them are capable of quality filmmaking. One small example: director Claire Scanlon uses the clichéd split screen to show Donna, Alice and Paul speaking on the phone. This technique is only slightly above the dreaded dream sequence in creativity, suggesting that the competence of Scanlon and all others involved with the film ois pretty much at the screenwriters’ (Lizzie Molyneux-Logelin and Wendy Molyneux).

If this movie isn’t good enough to have a discussion on “what could have been,” the fate of this movie is clear.

It’s best to forget about it.