Sunday, September 9, 2018

Check Your Baggage for Destination Wedding

By Steve Evans
Destination Wedding, an experimental film now available on Video on Demand, is the best rom-com of the last 40 years. I mean this most sincerely; no hyperbole. It has an essential edginess that eluded Sideways, which had been the genre's gold standard since 2004, and before that, Annie Hall from 1977.

Sharp, acerbic, jet-black and cynical, Destination Wedding will appeal to anyone who has ever pulled out of a relationship and wondered: how the fuck did I ever get into that? But moving forward, it also poses that eternal challenge: why not try this thing called love again? Two terrific stars, Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves, who have the only dialog in the film (toldja it was experimental). They play hugely unlikable characters thrown together under standard rom-com tropes that director Victor Levin turns upside-down. Imagine a farcical romance written by David Mamet.

I laffed. I cried. I damn-near died. This is a great movie.


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