Some of the guests you dread seeing at a wedding: the drug-impaired; the self-centered who pees on other people's shoes; and the homewrecker who brings her messy romance into the reception.
Claire Scanlon's raunchy The People We Hate at the Wedding, adapted from Grant Ginder's 2016 novel, may not go down as a comedic masterpiece, but it sure is the funniest movie this year.
Dysfuctional families are a gold mine for comedy, and this movie (now streaming on Amazon Prime Video) not only triggers laughter but makes you ponder about your own familial relationships.
Oscar-winner Allison Janney plays the pained matriarch Donna, who desperately hopes to reconnect with her grown children from her two previous husbands.
The perfect opportunity comes when Eloise (Cynthia Addai-Robinsons), her eldest daughter from her first husband, invites the family to her wedding in London.
But the occasion also stirs negative emotions. Donna, for one, has a lot of anxieties. Janney again delivers a nuanced, effortless performance. This is why her Donna, especially when she's stoned from cannabis gummies or oversharing to complete strangers, is hilarious.
The movie's humor banks not only on rowdy, crude, middle-class Americans in the company of stiff, wealthy British folks, but it also capitalizes on jealousy, envy, insecurities and fear to construct these awful, awful people that we hate in any wedding. Or in life, generally.
Donna's two kids from her second husband are the main meanies. Alice (Kristen Bell) is sleeping with her married boss. Her brother Paul (Ben Platt), the gay OCD therapist, mistreats his mother by never answering her calls.
The siblings hate their estranged half-sister Eloise simply because they are insecure of her wealth, beauty, and privilege.
When the three Americans arrive in London for the wedding, it's a laughfest witnessing Alice's and Ben's embarrassing, foolish escapades.
Bell is perfect as the lovesick mistress who puts down Eloise any chance she gets. Platt as the doormat boyfriend projects a hilarious balance between pathetic and self-righteous. Who'd rather be nice to his manipulative boyfriend than to his caring mother.
Comedy works when the gags are witty (screenplay by the Moleyneux sisters) and how tension builds up before the punchlines.
Scanlon, who also directed the Netflix romcom Set It Up, knows how to craft awkward situations, from moments of uh-oh's to second-hand embarrassments.
The ending fizzles with its saccharine conclusion, but everything else is uproarious.
And while it's amusing to see adults messing up, the movie allows introspection on how we treat family and strangers.
Learning a thing or two about family values need not be preachy to be effective—just clever and witty. And The People We Hate at the Wedding quite succeeds in this.
4 out of 5 stars
Amazon Prime Video