‘Destination Wedding’ travels well-worn path
Written and directed by Victor Levin (“5 to 7”), “Destination Wedding” is a throwback to the screwball comedies of yore, featuring an ever-appealing Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves as Lindsay and Frank, two people commonly referred to as “pills,” who have been invited to the same annoying destination wedding of the title.
Lindsay is the ex of the groom, who dumped her five weeks before their wedding, and an attorney for what Frank calls the “PC police.” Frank is the stepbrother of the groom, whom he hates, and is in marketing at J.D. Powers. She exhales on potted plants. He makes a weird, clearing sound with his mouth, as if he has throat or nasal problems. Frank and Lindsay hate each other on sight, we are expected to believe, while we also know that they will fall in love before the end.
At the airport, she catches him incrementally sneaking up the line. They sit next to one another on the eightpassenger plane and are both hyperarticulate, speaking lines that were obviously written for characters in a film. At one point, they argue about how to pronounce Paso Robles. On top of that, we hear every word Frank and Lindsay say, but people near them at the airport and on the plane are completely oblivious to their at times heated exchanges. What gives? we wonder.
“Destination Wedding” is what gives. But in the end it does not give enough. Before I argue that these two people are too attractive, intelligent and fun to be so unlucky in love and alone, let me say that for a film about an expensive wedding, the crowd scenes, including the wedding itself, are remarkably sparsely attended. Frank’s mother, who is also the groom’s mother, also serves as the maid of honor, reminding me of a line from “Hamlet” about “thrift” and “funeral meats.” Just for the
record, I do not recommend hip-hop as music for a wedding rehearsal party.
The big scene in “Destination Wedding” is a confrontation Frank and Lindsay have with a mountain lion as they take a stroll in the dusty hills of a San Luis Obispo winery/inn. The scene is an homage to Howard Hawks’ landmark comedy “Bringing Up Baby” (1938), the baby in the title being a leopard and the bickering couple in that film played by Katharine Hepburn and Cary Grant.
The mountain lion encounter is followed by simulated sex through which Frank and Lindsay continue to banter nonstop. But even after that verbose bit of splendor in the grass, Frank and Lindsay remain convinced that “meaning is a myth” and “love” is even more mythological and meaningless. Yet, we remain convinced they will end up together because that is the plot of all these films.