MY FIRST WEDDING (Ariel Winograd). 103 minutes. Subtitled. Opens Friday (July 20)at the Royal. See Rep Cinema Listings. Rating: NNN
After playing the Toronto Jewish Film Festival earlier this spring, the Argentine farce My First Wedding settles into a commercial run at the Projection Booth in Leslieville.
Don’t worry about the subtitles or the potentially alienating cultural aspects Ariel Winograd’s comedy of errors bends over backwards to appeal to absolutely everyone.
At the end of the very long day on which wistful Adrián (Daniel Hendler, of Lost Embrace and Family Law) was to marry his beloved Leonora (Natalia Oreiro), the prospective bride and groom explain what went wrong in flashback, directly addressing the camera.
It’s an intriguing gambit for what ultimately turns out to be a very pedestrian farce. Patricio Vega’s script follows the classic comic structure of a small mistake necessitating a white lie that triggers an escalating series of disasters that bring out the worst in Adrián and Leonora. Or at least Leonora, who comes off as a wild-eyed Bridezilla because she’s kept in the dark about the lengths to which Adrián is going to save the day.
And that’s the problem in the end. Winograd pitches the movie so broadly and pads out the running time with such creaky running gags about a priest and a rabbi driving around together and Adrián’s elderly grandfather trying to get high that the farce never gets out of second gear. That won’t stop Nia Vardalos from buying the remake rights, though.
