Confetti
Martin Freeman, Stephen Mangan

Along with a book entitled Religious Goofiness, which would look at strange products that people have produced to make a buck off of Jesus’ back like John the Baptist whiskey decantors where you pull off the Baptist’s head to pour yourself a drink, little statues of Jesus playing baseball and football with kids, and strippers for Jesus (I wish I was making this one up.  She preaches the gospels while returning you to the garden of Eden.  I guess you would have a captive audience.), some day if I have a wide enough readership to help in the project, I want to develop a book on strange and unique weddings stories and photos because over the years I have watched some truly hilarious events happen on the march down the aisle. Over the course of the last few years, I have witnessed a bridesmaid’s catch on fire, grooms take nose dives after drinking one too many the night before, children who everyone thought would look cute in a little tux or sprinkling flower pedals until the ankle biter got bored up front, and brides who have tried to do their best impression of Mae West by choosing the wrong dress for their body type. One of my family members had her mother march down the aisle to the tune Send in the Clowns and one of my brothers delay his wedding for a few minutes because the Iowa/North Carolina basketball game went into overtime.  I have witness dogs, white pythons, and white doves that were supposed to symbolize the couple’s love drop dead seconds after they flew out of the couple’s hands.
Until the 1930s, Americans had enough common sense to get married at their parents’ home with a handful of friends and family members in attendance. Today the bonding ritual clocks in at around $21,000 and has become as tacky as a black velvet Elvis sale at a dirt mall. In keeping up with the Jones’s, what was once a small sacred affair has become Broadway show-like productions that would make Liberace blush with the garishness of the event. (On a side note, if you have not been to church in years don’t drag God into the mistake you are about to make by getting married in a place of worship. Get hitched at the place here you met, on one of the scenic trains out of Boone, at Reiman Gardens, on a cruise ship, at a historic landmark, and even in the dvd section of Walmart. If you are living together and spend most Sunday mornings worshipping at the Church of St. Mattress, using a place of worship to make you legally legit is kind of like holding a pig roast at a synagogue or opening a hamburger stand in a Hindu temple. Also, if your child is in the wedding or if you have the route between the service and the hospital planned out just in case you deliver the crumb cruncher you are smuggling under your dress, don’t wear white. I know Dear Abby says it is okay, but Dear Abby is not going to have to sit in the pew and listen to the guy next to her say, “I can’t believe she wore white.”) 

 Americans have turned the modern wedding into a Las Vegas review. People have gotten engaged in mid-air, married underwater, said the “I do’s” next to the frozen Butterball turkey in the supermarket, exchanged rings on roller coasters and as they are trying to complete the final leg of a marathon, proven at least 2 Trekkies are going to get lucky in their lifetime by donning the garb of Star Fleet, carried their bouquet in a Super Big Gulp container, had Elvises, drag queens, and even on one occasion Barney the Dinosaur ask if they want to be man and wife, and had their pooch be the bride’s maid and one poor woman even tried to make poor Rover the groom. Police have been called to cake feeding rituals that have broken out into fist fights. In 1995, one bride placed the knife she had just used to cut the cake in the ribs of her new husband. There was even a congregation of guests even got the pleasure of watching a jilted woman, donning a fake beard and gardener’s outfit, dump a bucket of manure on one poor bride. I would have loved to have attended the wedding of the couple who got married in a whirlpool filled with orange jello or at least sat on the front steps of the church where a certain bride called off the wedding at the last moment to greet attendees with the news that she caught the groom wearing her wedding dress and locking lips with the best man.
I mention all of the above because I like the concept of Confetti, a mockumentary about 3 couples who are trying to win the title of ‘Most Original Wedding of the Year.’ Like the brilliant Christopher Guest films (Best In Show, Waiting for Guffman, A Mighty Wind) the dialogue is improvised by a who’s who of British comedy. A wedding magazine named Confetti has offered the prize of a new home to the winning man and wife. There is one couple who will be getting married in the clothes they were born in (Robert Webb - Peep Show and Olivia Colman -The Office & Green Wing), a.k.a. their birthday suits, another couple that will be having a tennis-themed wedding (Steven Mangan – Green Wing and Meredith MacNeill - Peep Show), and a third couple who will be basing their vows on old Hollywood musicals (Martin Freeman – The Office and Jessica Stevenson – The Royale Family). Each of the couple are extremely different. With the help of a pair of goofy wedding planners, each of the couples as a camera crew follows events along.
Watching this film, I was reminded of something my mother said after my parents vacationed in Italy. When asked how they liked the country, she remarked, “They certainly do like Jesus and the penis. Everywhere you go it is either our Lord and Savior or some artistic representation of it.” I have never seen that many daddy parts in a film that I did not have to take home in a brown paper bag. While in England this would be fine, in America, with all our hang ups, this is going to severely limit its audience. For the most part, wedding movies always do well, and this film does have some truly hilarious moments, but the audiences these films appeal to almost never go to the art houses where this British comedy would be shown. It is also very British in tone and tempo.

Grade:C