User Reviews

*I don't think this contains spoilers, but it is pretty involved and so may reveal aspects of the plot that you would rather have surprise you. If you'd rather go in to the film without preconceptions, don't read on.*

Apparently, Last Wedding received critical acclaim for its strong character development, its taut atmosphere, its remarkable dialogue, and its portrayal of Vancouver as Vancouver (a novel idea, considering the plethora of appalling Hollywood films that routinely convert the city into San Francisco, Los Angeles, or even Hong Kong). Despite good acting and attentive, often beautiful cinematography, however, Last Wedding is a hollow, almost nonsensical study of the banal dysfunction of urban social life. Did I mention that it's a comedy? The film is generally funny, especially in the first half, and pleasing in its visual familiarity (So very Vancouver, and there is a Winnipeg Jets cap, and a quintessential trip to the cabin to fish . . . ).

But:

Character development is irritatingly imbalanced. This may be because the film was shot over three consecutive summers and so fell victim to the intermittent availability of actors and crew. Under these circumstances balance and continuity must be challenging to attain, and the film suffers as a result. Of the three couples represented, only one is explored enough to lead the audience across the rickety bridge between motivation and action. Sarah, played beautifully by Molly Parker, is an ambitious young architect who lands her dream job fresh out of university despite a slump in the market, and who must struggle with her idealistic spouse's resentment of both her success and her ethical and aesthetic perspectives regarding architecture. The scenes involving this couple are brilliantly executed, and appear (uniquely) topically rooted in Vancouver's identity. The other two couples are another story. One is ploddingly two-dimensional: Randy English Professor cheats on Luddite Librarian Live-In with Ambitious Sexpot Student. From a narrative perspective at the very least, this subplot climaxes prematurely. The third couple's story is utter nonsense, and seems to have been included only as an ill-advised attempt at comic relief. The wedding of the title is that of Noah and Zipporah (actually, the title is a reference to the wedding before theirs, but to theirs by inference. Don't ask, it seems like an arbitrary titling decision. No surprise, really). Noah works in waterproofing supplies and lives in Zipporah's obligatorily leaky condo. Vancouverites should know what I mean when I say this is dime-store irony. Zipporah is a beautiful, sensual fashion plate with delusions of becoming a country music icon. Nothing about them, from their tense initial interactions through their rushed wedding and the arbitrary deterioration of their sanity and their relationship, makes anything approaching sense. We laugh at Zipporah and Noah, not with them, and only because we're expected to.

In all these cases, the only dubious trait shared by the characters is their inability to interact functionally with one another. And why can't they? They are, at any given point, selfish, thick-witted, spiteful, and actually insane. I found empathy for the characters unattainable, as they lacked emotional depth and the motivations for their actions and statements were inadequately explored. This could in fact set up an interesting motive for the location of Last Wedding. The city of Vancouver is often characterized as beautiful but new and soulless, without history or personality - in Douglas Coupland's words, a city of glass (and maybe this isn't how Doug meant it, but it works). Perhaps that is the link between the setting and the characters in Last Wedding. Bruce Sweeney's characters are people of glass, by turns transparent, brittle, distant. Unfortunately, this representation is so haphazard and incongruous that it fails to make its purpose clear to the viewer. Perhaps it wasn't intended at all?

Last Wedding is an awkward, senseless collage of humour, depraved selfishness, and Vancouverism. Make of that what you will.

And I have sat through Shanghai Surprise, so that's saying a lot.

Who on God's earth would find something like this amusing? It is, on one hand, your garden-variety "men are such children, and women are shrews" "urban" comedies that get rammed down our collective throats every day.

On the other hand, what makes this movie unusual is that none of the characters, especially the male ones, have any redeeming qualities whatsoever. NONE whatsoever. I could really care less about the young architect with her jealous prick boyfriend who is so loving toward her, he makes her life miserable simply because she is a success. I found myself channel surfing during their parts. Then there is the obligatory story of an English professor throwing away a perfectly good relationship to setup a pert young no-nothing with firm tits, no morals, and no expectations. It's your typical nauseating story of some supposedly educated man lapping up whatever drivel Young Student spews because he wants in her pants; she actually writes a "poem" that seems more like a contribution to The Penthouse Letters, and the entranced doofus academic behaves as if she is Chaucer and the Bard rolled into a skanky blonde package. Predictably, he screws the student, the girlfriend finds out, and she kicks him out of their home. And of course, he is miserable, realizing (as much as a mongoloid is capable of realizing) that he threw away a good woman for an easy, meaningless screw. YAWN. Didn't we see Woody Allen do this a hundred times, and only better? My most scathing comments are for the third couple, Zipporah and Noah. I cannot understand why anyone would find the antics of Noah humorous, laughable, or even tolerable. Zipporah is an annoying spoiled yenta, yes. Noah, however, is an insufferable rat mistaken for a human being, the most loathsome character I have ever seen on my television screen. He is rude, he is condescending, he is obnoxious, he is physically extremely unappealing, and he is verbally and physically abusive. In one "comedic" scene, The Happy Lovers are not speaking...again. Noah decides to communicate with his wife by taking a hammer and smashing one of her beloved horse figurines to bits. That's not funny; that's emotional abuse. Then there is the wacky instance when Noah decides to refer to his wife as a "half wit." He humiliates his wife in front of his mongoloid, miserable friends, first by belittling her choice of apparel (she looks great) and then by treating her like the ignorant hired help. He belittles her ambitions of being a singer, first by sneaking around behind her back, violating her privacy by vandalizing her music room; second by actually making fun of his wife's music by singing it in an off-key country twang. This is comedy? I used to work in the homicide bureau of the local county prosecutor, and I can tell you this: it's emotional abuse like this that gets spouses shot. Poor Noah is so miserable (you get the feeling that this rodent masquerading as a man doesn't need a beautiful young wife to make him miserable; he's just a dismal excuse for a human being), he is leaving his wife on the sly. Because he lacks gumption, a polite way of saying He Has No Balls, he sneakily packs his bag while Zipporah is asleep. When she awakens, he flees the house. When she finds the packed bag and confronts him, he drives off and hides like a sissy girl...that is, after he emotionally torments his wife by stopping as if to start a conversation with her, only to burn rubber, driving away, when she walks to his car window. This is funny? No, this is at the very least the grounds for divorce. The very last scene we see of this happy couple is when Zipporah finds her rat spouse cornered, as if in a trap, in a seedy hotel room. Noah wasn't even man enough to answer the door when she found him, so she takes matters into her own hands in the form of a tire iron, which she uses to smash the window. The only way that this film could have redeemed itself is if Zipporah took the logical next step with that iron and killed the sniveling, abusive, repulsive rat.

I watched this film last night. I liked it very much. 'Last Wedding' tells the story of the three couples and the problems they confront. The problems, all serious, range from miscommunication, physical and emotional abuse, professional conflicts to cheating. But I have to say that some people seem to be confused by the title of the film and think that all the main characters are married. That is not the case. As a matter of fact, only one of the couples is married. The other two live together.

The main reason why I decided to write about this film is that I was really surprised for one or two of comments I've read here. The main couple, the one we met since the start of the film, and the one that gets married, is the protagonist of a real messy relationship. After only six months of meeting each other, Noah (Benjamin Ratner) and Zipporah (Frida Betrani) decide to get married. They do it but things don't go well since the beginning. Noah doesn't know it but her wife wants to make it as a professional singer but apparently she doesn't have enough talent. So, she stays home with nothing more to do than watch TV. She doesn't confide in her husband whom she doesn't even let enter to her music room. Noah, on her part, is falling apart. He always had doubts about the wedding but he kept it going. But, after the wedding, he's devastated. His wife won't talk to him. And then the violence comes. In one very poignant scene, the telephone rings, Noah asks Zipporah to answer it, she ignores him even though she has the phone at her side. Noah loses it and breaks one of the ceramic horses figures that Zipporah collects. How does she reacts? She takes the phone and hits one of Noah's ears with it. It wasn't the first time we saw a violent Zipporah but until that point we've never seen her actually hitting her husband. After that, Noah tries to discuss her relationship with Zipporah but she refuses. She thinks everything is all right. One particular interesting detail is that all the times Zipporah realizes she has messed it up, she tries to seduce Noah. At the beginning of their relationship, that would work. Zipporah would lose it and then have incredible sex with Noah and things would go back to normal. But of course , that wouldn't work forever. Noah gives it up and takes every opportunity he has to humiliate Zipporah for her singing skills (she hits him again after that one) and her lack of formal preparation. So, to sum it up, this couple's relationship terribly SUCKS.

I decided to write so much about Noah and Zipporah because some people here have written that this couple was the funniest one. But I am sure that if instead of Zipporah, Noah would've been the one who physically abused his wife, nobody would dare to say that it was funny. Oh, yeah, this husband hits her wife, develops an abusive relationship with her, and every time he does hit her, he brings flowers... oh, yeah, VERY funny. No, it isn't. Hey, I know this movie is supposed to be a comedy and it is, but I can't accept that what it makes it funny is a gender bias. Men cannot be abused. If they are, it's funny. No, it's not funny. I felt bad not only for Noah but also for Zipporah.

The other two couples face difficult problems also. College professor Peter (Tom Scholte) cheats on Leslie (Nancy Sivak) with a student. Arquitect Shane (Vincent Gale) seems unable to cope with his girlfriend Sarah's (Molly Parkers)sudden success. We don't get to explore these two couples very much. For example, I was confused with what were the real roots of Shane's discomfort. Was it because he was experiencing professional jealousy of his girlfriend? Or was it because they had really different perspectives of how architects should work? Anyway, the lack of information doesn't stop us from getting their conflicts.

The main asset of this film is that it rings real. Watching the film makes you promise not to make the same mistakes of the characters. "Get to know each other well before marriage" "Listen to each other" "Don't cheat" "Respect each other's interests" are some of the tips.

Last Wedding just wore me out. There's an obvious level of talent here, more than enough to produce a smart, funny and/or touching little film. I kept waiting for that movie to take shape, but it never does. Spending 100 minutes watching interesting ideas of characters that never coalesce, sitting through scenes that go out of their way to avoid most of the meaningful drama in the story, listening to dialog that almost always says either too much or too little, it's as though Last Wedding were made up of the deleted scenes that weren't good enough to make it into a mediocre indy flick about modern relationships.

Focusing on three Canadian couples and the disintegration of their relationships, writer/director Bruce Sweeney never offers a reason for any of it. Noah and Zipporah (Benjamin Ratner and Frida Betrani) are getting married after knowing each other for only 6 months, and there's not even the slightest hint of how these two fell in love or why they tying the knot so quickly. Noah's friends Peter and Shane (Tom Scholte and Vincent Gale) already have their own live-in girlfriends.

Peter's been with Leslie (Nancy Sivak) for so long he can't even remember but though there's no sign of anything wrong with their relationship, he cheats on her with a young college student. Here's the thing about that. Some guys do cheat for practically no reason. Those guys cheat all the time. The movie clearly shows that this is the first time Peter's done anything like this. When those guys cheat, there's always a reason. They're frustrated with their career or unhappy with their lover or regretful about their life and the cheating is a reaction to that emotional turmoil. There's no such explanation for Peter's libidinous behavior. This girl reads him a sexually charged poem and it's like he's mesmerized.

Then there's Shane, who's involved with a younger woman named Sarah (Molly Parker). Shane is an architect bitterly unhappy with his profession and his mood is not improved when Sarah graduates with her own degree in architecture and gets a job at a big firm. But again, aside from throwing out some names and jargon from an architectural textbook, there's no rationale for anything he feels or does.

Noah and Zipporah's attraction, Peter's cheating and Shane's anger are at the heart of everything in this movie, but since none of it makes sense, nothing in the film makes sense. All that you can have is little bits of dramatic and comedic shtick and what there is of that in Last Wedding is weirdly disjointed. The story is constantly building to moments of humor or angst, then running away from them as fast as it can. The one time the film sets up a big moment and then pays it off effectively is, unsurprisingly, the best scene in the entire movie by a country mile. If writer/director Sweeney had consistently done that, he might have made at least an average motion picture. For whatever reason, though, his "cinematus interruptus" prevents this movie from building any momentum or sustaining any entertainment.

In the final analysis, all Last Wedding has going for it is Frida Bertrani taking off her top and Tom Scholte giving a performance that's a cute mix of David Letterman and George Constanza. Both of those things are nice, but not nearly enough to make this film worth seeing.

SPOILER***A better title would have been "No Cahonies Noah", or Clueless Couples In Canada". Usually there is at least one or more characters in a relationship movie we all can relate to or identify with. I saw this train wreck coming from the onset of the meddling mother of the psycho bride. Even the boob shot and the blow job couldn't save this movie. A saving grace would have been at least one of the characters stepping up to the plate and being a hero or heroine,but I digress,and unfortunately so did all of them. The ending made an excellent point,but didn't show a poignant moment for the females as well who were equally as guilty of emotional neglect.

Last Wedding (2001): Dir: Bruce Sweeney / Cast: Benjamin Ratner, Tom Scholte, Vincent Gale, Molly Parker, Frida Betrani: Independent film about the last fling of freedom for three males. Benjamin Ratner and Frida Betrani get engaged but he discovers that her ambition is in country music, which she is a failure at. Tom Scholte and Nancy Sivak have problems when he has an affair with one of his literary students. Vincent Gale and Molly Parker are both architects but when she receives a big career break he isn't supportive. This is an interesting study of relationships gone wrong, which unfortunately ends in tragedy. Directed by Bruce Sweeney with a documentary appeal as if observing these relationships. Acting is top notch as it examines the three males and their relationships hopes and ultimate failures, all done with great comic touches. Ratner knows that his wife's love for music isn't doubled as a talent but can he break this to her? Scholte heads straight for trouble when embarking in an affair, which his wife will learn thus leaving him to ponder his reasoning. Gale is threatened by tradition when the thought of his wife being a bigger cash earner. Molly Parker is a great new edition to Sweeney's ensemble. It is film about expectations when it comes to relationships and despite its negative view it certainly hits the point home. Score: 8 / 10

"Noah! Open this (bleeping) door!" Bang! Bang! Bang! "I just want to talk!" The sound of her fists against the door echo through the courtyard like small arms fire.

Cowering inside the motel room Noah (Ben Ratner) can only hope Zipporah (Frida Betrani) will go away if he remains absolutely still. No such luck. Peering through the drapes he watches in horror as she walks back from her car with a tire jack in one hand and fire in her eye.

Obviously this marriage is in trouble. It began so well, too, with Noah, a salesman for a waterproofing company and Zipporah, an aspiring (and, unfortunately for her, supremely untalented) country singer, gazing into each other's eyes while the rabbi pronounced them man and wife. A few months later the marriage has sprung more leaks than the condo they share in metro Vancouver.

Noah's buddies are heading for problems as well. Can Lit prof Peter (Tom Scholte) is cheating on his sedate librarian wife Leslie (Nancy Sivak) with provocative young student Laurel (Marya Delver). Struggling architect Shane (Vincent Gale) feels threatened because his newly graduated girlfriend, Sarah (Molly Parker), also an architect, has landed a job with a high profile firm.

Hip, literate and darkly funny, this 2001 entry is the third film from Vancouver writer/director Bruce Sweeney.

Sweeney uses the predicaments of his characters to show how relationships among today's affluent young urbanites can crumble under the stress and pressure of modern life, especially if they are not built on a strong foundation to begin with. Lack of communication, sexual betrayal, career envy, Sweeney dissects them all with savage wit and savvy insight. The director allows his cast ample freedom to explore and develop their roles and he is repaid with characters which behave as if they were modelled on real people rather than broadly drawn stereotypes. Parker and Gale won Genie Awards (the Canadian Oscars). However, the whole cast is worthy of merit with Betrani a force of nature as frustrated country singer Zipporah. (With her temperament perhaps she should have considered a career in heavy metal instead.)

This is one of those rare movies in which Vancouver gets a chance to play itself. The dialogue is peppered with local references (the Cambie St. bridge, the old Expo 86 site, provincial politics). What Woody Allen does for New York Sweeney does for Vancouver. Twenty years in B.C. have given the Sarnia, Ontario native a feel for the quirky vibe of West Coast life (The movie also resembles an Allen film in the depiction of its male characters as vain, indecisive wimps who bend like willows in the wind while trying to hold their own with strong, purposeful women.)

Last Wedding is full of randy humour and a decidedly unromantic view of sex. The scene in which Laurel and Peter discuss Canadian authors while engaged in a dispassionate sexual act is rumoured to be a favourite in certain academic circles.