Robert DeNiro, ostensibly “back” as a frontline serious actor after Silver Linings Playbook, slides back into schlock comedy as quickly as you can say The Godfather. Yet, playing a horny, blunt and frisky wiseguy of a different sort, he is the least of Big Wedding’s considerable shortcomings. A climactic scene where the principle actors stand around in their wedding finery confessing hidden truths to each other feels like they’re aiming their lines over each other’s shoulders. Diane Keaton, wise and elegant, often seems to be in a different movie. Together, DeNiro and Keaton prepare for their adopted son, Alejandro’s wedding by pretending to still be married since Alejandro’s Colombian biological mother is both very Catholic and coming to the wedding. Robin Williams as a sneering priest adds to the Catholic nods and winks.
Katherine Heigl, the Charlize Theron look-alike with a fraction of her talent, plays a biological daughter who’s estranged from dad (DeNiro). This setup predicts the inevitable sentimental ending. DeNiro’s other biological child is a physician (Topher Grace) who, although nearly 30 years old, is for reasons unstated still a proud virgin. When Alejandro’s Colombian sister Nuria (Ana Ayora) accompanies her mom to the wedding, Topher is smitten. Since characters in comedies like this make 180-degree temperament turns at the drop of a hat, Topher is–presto!–suddenly just like his Dad. When Nuria surprisingly dives clothes-free into a swimming pond Topher goes after her hard as DeNiro goes after ex-wife Keaton on their first night pretending to be married again. Only Topher comes up short. Keaton, on their first night of pretend marriage, allows herself to give in to DeNiro’s advances (sorry, I only avoid revealing spoilers on films I’m recommending). She then, in classic do-as-I-say-but-not-as-I-do fashion, has a heart-to heart talk with her young Columbian guest on why she should play much harder to get. Since, remember, our participants here turn their entire characters around on a dime, we find young Nuria refusing our virgin doctor as passionately as she came on to him minutes earlier. The power of Keaton, who’s been dishing out sensible advice since Annie Hall.
While these actors are a decade or so removed from doing a Quartet-like retirement home comedy, their crotchetiness is beginning to show already. Sarandon, as the unmarried girlfriend who’s the biggest victim of this little con game, keeps her chin up and decides to stick with her plan to cater the big event anyway. It’s hard to take her steadfast resilience seriously, though, when in the very first scene of the film, we’re treated to an awkward sex scene that catches Sarandon and DeNiro in a rather uncompromising position, witnessed by an accidentally snooping Keaton. While Sarandon has so much screen presence she could make a tissue commercial exciting, her passive-aggressive squirminess ultimately falls as flat as the rest of the proceedings. The film careens back and forth from forced saucy comedy (the low point of which may be a chipper Topher calling his mom “a cockblocker”) to silly sentimentality. Wanna guess whether DeNiro and Sarandon end up reconciled? Whether the Colombian mom discovers the game and has a few secrets of her own to reveal? You’d be right. Plot developments are strictly served on a silver platter at this improbable wedding. When DeNiro slips into his great actor persona and gives a heartfelt talk to Heigl, it’s almost enough to pronounce it as the film’s saving grace. Until the realization sets in that here is yet another character shift so improbable it would induce whiplash if we hadn’t started dozing off by then.
2 Casts From Heaven Stuck In Purgatory (out of 5)