MURIEL’S WEDDING

MURIEL’S WEDDING is a surprisingly funny film that tells the story of a incredibly dysfunctional family. Starring an all-Australian cast, it opens at the wedding during the bouquet toss. Muriel Heslop, “the klutz,” catches the bouquet but is severely chided by the other girls who lambaste her with slurs about her size, her dress and her social status. However, Muriel refuses to be crushed by her circumstances and sets about to change her destiny. She is convinced that she can do so by moving away from Porpoise Spit to Sydney (“The City of Brides”) and becoming a wife. She eventually agrees to marry, for money, an athlete who must marry to gain Australian citizenship for competition purposes, only to discover that marriage is not the solution to happiness.
Somewhat inadvertently, this movie makes two points : 1) marriage does not solve one’s problems; and, 2) you reap what you sow. With regard to the first, Muriel does succeed in proving the futility of man’s attempt to find happiness through his own efforts. Disturbing, however, is that this film substitutes sex for substance, off-color comedy for character and foul language for dialog. This is especially sad because the story is quite capable of standing on its own merits.