I watched this movie without watching the trailer, so I went in completely blind, not knowing what to expect. All I knew was this this was a Spanish comedy involving a wedding. As a fan of wedding movies, both comedies and dramas, I expected to at least have a good time. Except I didn't, because the movie tries too hard to be raunchy and off-the-wall and it just came off as cheesy. It is extremely politically correct but, worse, fancies itself as anything but. Not to mention, this movie with this exact or similar plot has been done countless times before (and better) by Hollywood, French and Italian cinema.
When watching comedies where everything goes wrong, you are expected to sympathize with the main characters, you are supposed to come to like them even if they start unlikable, so that when the happy ending comes you feel good for them and feel less bad about laughing at their misfortunes. But in this movie there are no lessons, no real character growth, only "getting out of it" situations, and if that involves lying and manipulation so be it.
One of the plot lines in this movie is that, while the husband is moving heaven and Earth to be able to attend his own wedding and not disappoint his wife, his wife in turn gets drunk and ends up sleeping with a random man. Her group of female friends immediately dismiss it as an issue of no importance and the movie goes the extra-mile of portraying the random man she slept with as the villain. As she if she had just made a minor mistake by betraying her fiancé on her own wedding ceremony.
There's a scene that involves a group of women ogling at the naked body of an unconscious man and, when he wakes up startled, one of them, clearly playing the butch role of Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, punches him in the face, giving him a black eye. The tone of the movie makes it very explicit that we're supposed to find this very funny but I don't. I wouldn't like if the roles were reversed, so I don't like it when misogyny is mirrored as if that's somehow empowering. Despite all the infamous machismo Spanish society is known for, I notice a trend in their comedies, where the women do as they please and the men are supposed to forgive them immediately. We fantasize about Spanish men like Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem, but according to Spanish comedies, Spanish men invoke nothing but feelings of pity or, worse, disgust.
There are some funny shenanigans involving the groom, his father and his father-in-law, as they travel around Europe trying to find ways to reach the wedding on time but facing the unexpected situations that make comedies funny. The actor who played the groom's father, Joaquin Nunez, did a wonderful job. His comedic instincts are on point and, frankly, if it weren't for him, I would have given this movie 1 out of 10.
When watching comedies where everything goes wrong, you are expected to sympathize with the main characters, you are supposed to come to like them even if they start unlikable, so that when the happy ending comes you feel good for them and feel less bad about laughing at their misfortunes. But in this movie there are no lessons, no real character growth, only "getting out of it" situations, and if that involves lying and manipulation so be it.
One of the plot lines in this movie is that, while the husband is moving heaven and Earth to be able to attend his own wedding and not disappoint his wife, his wife in turn gets drunk and ends up sleeping with a random man. Her group of female friends immediately dismiss it as an issue of no importance and the movie goes the extra-mile of portraying the random man she slept with as the villain. As she if she had just made a minor mistake by betraying her fiancé on her own wedding ceremony.
There's a scene that involves a group of women ogling at the naked body of an unconscious man and, when he wakes up startled, one of them, clearly playing the butch role of Melissa McCarthy in Bridesmaids, punches him in the face, giving him a black eye. The tone of the movie makes it very explicit that we're supposed to find this very funny but I don't. I wouldn't like if the roles were reversed, so I don't like it when misogyny is mirrored as if that's somehow empowering. Despite all the infamous machismo Spanish society is known for, I notice a trend in their comedies, where the women do as they please and the men are supposed to forgive them immediately. We fantasize about Spanish men like Antonio Banderas and Javier Bardem, but according to Spanish comedies, Spanish men invoke nothing but feelings of pity or, worse, disgust.
There are some funny shenanigans involving the groom, his father and his father-in-law, as they travel around Europe trying to find ways to reach the wedding on time but facing the unexpected situations that make comedies funny. The actor who played the groom's father, Joaquin Nunez, did a wonderful job. His comedic instincts are on point and, frankly, if it weren't for him, I would have given this movie 1 out of 10.