“Love Wedding Repeat” Makes Audiences Laugh, Cringe, Repeat

AP

New Netflix rom-com grinds gears and teaches valuable lessons 

Way beyond us in outer space, secrets and wisdom beyond our wildest imagination await. Everything seems random at the same time that nothing seems random, a cosmos ruled by chance and the unchanging forces of nature. These are some of the same realities that make romance—onscreen and off—so complicated.

“A wise person once said about love, ‘We live in a universe that’s ruled by chaos and chance, where all it takes is just one moment of ill fortune for all our hopes and dreams to go right down the sh*tter.’”

“Love Wedding Repeat,” hot off Netflix’s romantic comedy press, dropped on Friday with this opening line, a line that sends a soothing crackle of laughter through a Week 3 spent inside.

I sat down to watch the movie by myself, but after that line and five more minutes of screwball humor, clicked pause and asked if my housemates would be interested in joining. 

We all need the humor right now. 

This dry, very British aphorism on ill fortune comes from the film’s oracle. Voiced by actress Penny Ryder—who sounds uncannily like the queenly Judi Dench and is known for her supporting roles in “Wimbledon” and “Skyfall”—the Oracle speaks through stars and cosmic dust to set the mood with a punchline that might crack a chuckle in even the hardest of nuts.

Because love, well—it’s what holds us together, but sometimes it drives us absolutely mad. And just like everything else in life, it really does come down to thousands, even millions of chance encounters and events that lead to every current moment.

Based on the 2012 motion picture “Plan de table” by Francis Nief and Christelle Raynal, the movie takes place in the eternal city of Rome, backdrop to many beloved films and romances. Thanks to Rome, Love Wedding Repeat claims stunning architecture and Mediterranean ambience to tell what can only be described as  whacky.

Main character Jack, brought to life by Sam Claflin, finds himself in the middle of saving his sister’s wedding when an uninvited guest threatens to make things hairy for the newlyweds. At the same time, fate gifts him another shot at what could be true love with the woman who got away three years prior.

For a full hour, we are taken through a series of jinxed events that become more and more stressful.The movie is an ulcer-inducing tribulation for most of the wedding party, and I was preparing to write a scathing review about crucial aspects of good storytelling the film abandoned and why it’s simply a bad idea to torture basically every character without pause.

Stories work because they ride on the build and release of tension. Things should go wrong around most corners, because that’s life, and life makes for compelling narratives, but well-constructed scenes are built on beats. Things have to change, have to move up and down, side to side, ebb and flow. 

Thanks to screenwriter and director Dean Craig, “Love Wedding Repeat” does none of this for its first hour.

By about minute 59 of the film, there’s hardly been a movement between positive and negative. Almost every single scene and moment hinges on a downside, and it’s exhausting. 

Within 15 minutes, Jack’s best friend is bombing the conversation that could jump-start his acting career, Jack’s old flatmate Sidney won’t stop interrupting Jack and Dina as they’re rekindling a potential romance, Jack’s ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend won’t stop projecting his insecurity into every interaction he has and it turns out the bride cheated on her fiancé three weeks ago. 

By the time the nearly completely sedated “maid of honor” Bryan makes his speech and then plunges into the wedding cake, I didn’t even care. Everything was already doomed from the very beginning, and instead of holding onto our hope, the incessant distress made us beg for an end. 

And it nearly did—in death. Is this seriously a rom-com?

Luckily, at the moment my sanity was about to snap, Ryder’s soothing, sagacious oracle voice pauses the movie mid-death scene and swoops in to redeem the entire film by making it a lesson about chance. 

“One bit of bad luck, and it all goes tits up,” she says. “But what if it had gone differently?”

And then, rewind—love, wedding, repeat—it does. 

We’re given some insight into the nitty-gritty of chance, how one change can make or break a love story. The obnoxious Rebecca gets her shot with the self-obsessed, neurotic man of her dreams. Kilt-wearing Sidney finally learns how to have a decent conversation. 

And Jack, well—let’s just say, it was the only time I’ve ever witnessed the moment leading up to the big kiss of a romantic comedy interrupted by yet another untimely chance encounter and some well-deserved expletives.
It’s no “Roman Holiday,” but this quirky story made for some heartfelt laughs supported by a soundtrack of great classical, operatic works. A good reminder that every decision we make has consequences—and that you really, really shouldn’t lie—“Love Wedding Repeat” might be just the thing we need to grab life by the horns and do our best to create the world we really want to live in.