Ladymol's Review

This film has such a great premise: two guys having a commitment ceremony, inviting their relatives all of whom have secrets and problems. Unfortunately it just didn’t work for me. The focus of the drama was quite scattered and with so many couples and so many problems I found it hard to empathise with any of them really. The gay couple, Grant and Ryan didn’t convince me either. There was very little body language, despite one or two forced scenes where they seemed unable to keep their hands off each other. The next moment, however, they were cool and distant.

The day is disrupted when Ryan’s mother arrives with a homeless man in tow. He’s very disturbing in a creepy way, and his role seemed to me to be utterly forced. If he’d been good looking (or ever over four feet tall) I might have believed in the devastating role he plays during the occasion, but he, most of all the characters, didn’t work for me.

The acting was very up and down, some characters good, some woeful. Ironically the one playing a celebrity soap star was about the worst.

I’m not sure what we were supposed to take away from the ending. I like films with happy endings; I’ll accept a tragic film if it’s authentic. A confused “huh?” ending just annoys me.

To be honest, really not worth even renting.

Cerisaye's Review

Ryan & Grant have been together 3 years and are now getting married in their back yard in Vancouver.  Well Ryan says it’s not a wedding, those are for straight people, and he’s annoyed that Grant has bought a tuxedo and wants the whole shooting match.  They’ve each invited their families to the ceremony, and now it’s time for last minute nerves and second thoughts.

It’s billed as a comedy, and there are many genuinely funny moments, but the tears I shed weren’t laughter, too many references to dead babies for a start.  For the relations who turn up for the wedding have all got real emotional baggage just waiting to spill out, especially once the drink starts to flow and that tension in the air affects everyone in the party.

This is an ensemble piece, about people and their problems, love and relationships and what makes a good partnership.  It’s not about gay or straight, and though the focus appears to be a gay marriage it’s not exactly political either.  Though I suppose it’s there in the background that gay couples like Ryan & Grant have the right to marry in Canada when in many places they can’t, not yet.  Dialogue plays on the problem of what to call a legal ceremony between two men if it’s not a wedding.  One of the film’s most intense scenes has a distraught Grant wailing that the Christians are right, they are deviants who have anal sex and shouldn’t even be thinking about getting married.  Besides, he can’t stop thinking about sex with other people.  Ryan takes all this with characteristic calm (he meditates naked in the garden) and reminds his lover that’s what it means to be a man no matter gay or straight (Hmmn. Not sure I buy that insouciance).

We follow each of the couples and their separate stories of marital breakdown, abortion, bulimia, failed conception, unwanted pregnancy, and death of a child.  Comic relief from real emotional angst is provided by Ryan’s mother and the toy-boy street kid she picked up on the way to the wedding, a Puckish character named Dylan.  He interacts with everyone, for better or worse, and his carefree attitude has an effect that possibly changes the direction of people’s lives.

Things come to a head and suddenly it looks like the wedding is in doubt.  But it takes more than celebratory rites to make a committed partnership regardless of sexual orientation.  And that’s the real message behind this film.

It’s far from perfect.  Some actors are better than others, subplots threaten to overwhelm the story, and many of the characters are plain annoying- one of Ryan’s brothers even says that he’s not really gay!- and the misery gets a bit much.

What the film tries to do is show that gay and straight couples aren’t so different.  Everyone says the thing that makes the difference and binds heteros is their ability to have children and make a family.  Well, it’s clear from the story that it’s not quite that simple and procreation instead of gluing couples together sometimes causes them to break up.  Just as the temptation to casual sex is as strong to straight people as gay men.

It probably won’t please everyone but if you’re in the right mood for reflection then it’s worth a look.  If only to prove that weddings aren’t necessarily icing on the cake for gay couples any more than straight ones.  Ryan & Grant should’ve eloped.