Yes it is a cheesy, contrived, feel good wedding movie. Yet somehow the team pulls it off, don't expect anything deep or meaningful, just take it for what it is, a feel good piece of entertainment to make us happy and the production crew a salary. Probably a pretty good one.
68 Reviews
not the best, but made us laugh
novagirl115 June 2021
Of course, it was not the best movie with mini-stories that turn out to be connected (those are still the ones made by Garry Marshall), and at times it was a little stupid, but it was still entertaining. We were laughing out loud at the physical comedy! I also found it fun that it was filmed in Boston - I even spotted bottles of Bully Boy at the bar!
Avoid this one if you can
anita-borkamo2 February 2022
So Diane Keaton is a lovely actress and I do enjoy feel good movies. But this is plainly boring except for the opening scene, which was funny. Oh yes, I forgot, the Russian woman and the brother in chains was OK. Apart from that, this was a snooze fest.
A disaster
TheLittleSongbird2 June 2022
'Love, Weddings and Other Disasters' was watched with very mixed expectations, leaning closer towards intrepidation. Have enjoyed/love a good deal of Diane Keaton's work and Jeremy Irons is one of my all time favourite actors, and they (particularly Irons) were the reasons for watching. The advertising and trailers did not look promising to put it lightly, word of mouth was generally awful and Dennis Dugan is something of a dread name in my eyes.
While there are worse films around, there is very little to love about 'Love, Weddings and Other Disasters' and overall it is a disaster and really is that bad on the whole. This is coming from someone too who likes comedy and romance and who has no problem with films with multiple storylines. By all means it is nowhere near as bad as 'Jack and Jill', it takes a lot of doing for any film to be on that level of abominable, and the valiant work Keaton and Irons give to save it is truly admirable, but they are much better than this and deserved much better.
There are a couple of redeeming merits. Keaton and against type Irons attack their roles and material with spirited enthusiasm and have a truly delightful chemistry, the only source of charm in the film.
Keaton also has the film's best line in her reaction to Laurence's note, echoing the viewer's sentiments in their frustration at one of the worst cases of the many ridiculous character behaviours.
Can say nothing else good however. The rest of the cast do not work. Maggie Grace tries but has a bland character and she at the end of the day comes over as that. Worst of all is Dugan's cameo, which is just embarrassing (one of the worst since Madonna's in 'Die Another Day'), coming over as insufferably irritating. The soundtrack is not just forgettable but it even more grates and is overused and random to an ill fitting degree. Dugan's direction shows how incompetent he can be behind the camera, showing a complete disregard for pace, which throughout is erratic and lacking in energy), or subtlety, which seems to be an alien word to Dugan.
Furthermore, the story is very disjointed, having four subplots and instead of tying together nicely it feels like four different films in one and only one of them being marginally watchable. They also feel unrelated and then are tied too predictably and neatly. The gameshow one is particularly inept and the cringe factor was through the roof. Of the four, only Keaton and Irons' has some degree of success and that was a long way from perfect. There is very little warmth or charm, when it comes to romance it is bland other than with Keaton and Irons.
On top of that, 'Love, Weddings and Other Disasters' is a complete disaster when it comes to the comedy other than one line from Keaton. The dialogue is crude and juvenile with no sophistication or subtlety in sight, and it constantly sounds awkward. Too many of the comedic set pieces are overlong and distasteful, with one of the worst offenders being the scene on the escalator. The character bore and/or irritate and there are too many stupid character decisions (such as Laurence writing the note and the gameshow subplot is rife with them). It doesn't even look good, the camera work is poorly framed with bacon slicer like editing that wastes the lovely locations.
In conclusion, really, really bad. 2/10.
While there are worse films around, there is very little to love about 'Love, Weddings and Other Disasters' and overall it is a disaster and really is that bad on the whole. This is coming from someone too who likes comedy and romance and who has no problem with films with multiple storylines. By all means it is nowhere near as bad as 'Jack and Jill', it takes a lot of doing for any film to be on that level of abominable, and the valiant work Keaton and Irons give to save it is truly admirable, but they are much better than this and deserved much better.
There are a couple of redeeming merits. Keaton and against type Irons attack their roles and material with spirited enthusiasm and have a truly delightful chemistry, the only source of charm in the film.
Keaton also has the film's best line in her reaction to Laurence's note, echoing the viewer's sentiments in their frustration at one of the worst cases of the many ridiculous character behaviours.
Can say nothing else good however. The rest of the cast do not work. Maggie Grace tries but has a bland character and she at the end of the day comes over as that. Worst of all is Dugan's cameo, which is just embarrassing (one of the worst since Madonna's in 'Die Another Day'), coming over as insufferably irritating. The soundtrack is not just forgettable but it even more grates and is overused and random to an ill fitting degree. Dugan's direction shows how incompetent he can be behind the camera, showing a complete disregard for pace, which throughout is erratic and lacking in energy), or subtlety, which seems to be an alien word to Dugan.
Furthermore, the story is very disjointed, having four subplots and instead of tying together nicely it feels like four different films in one and only one of them being marginally watchable. They also feel unrelated and then are tied too predictably and neatly. The gameshow one is particularly inept and the cringe factor was through the roof. Of the four, only Keaton and Irons' has some degree of success and that was a long way from perfect. There is very little warmth or charm, when it comes to romance it is bland other than with Keaton and Irons.
On top of that, 'Love, Weddings and Other Disasters' is a complete disaster when it comes to the comedy other than one line from Keaton. The dialogue is crude and juvenile with no sophistication or subtlety in sight, and it constantly sounds awkward. Too many of the comedic set pieces are overlong and distasteful, with one of the worst offenders being the scene on the escalator. The character bore and/or irritate and there are too many stupid character decisions (such as Laurence writing the note and the gameshow subplot is rife with them). It doesn't even look good, the camera work is poorly framed with bacon slicer like editing that wastes the lovely locations.
In conclusion, really, really bad. 2/10.
Stinker of the Year
drednm18 January 2021
Warning: Spoilers
I thought I'd get a chuckle and boy was I wrong. Despite toplining Diane Keaton and Jeremy Irons, this is easily among the handful of worst stinkers of the year. Directed and written by Dennis Dugan (who also appears as a game show host), the film blends the stories of several sets of "lovers" and each set is worse than the other. Take Keaton and Irons. She's a blind photographer (don't get me started) and he's a snotty wedding planner. They meet via a blind date (get it?) and their ridiculous "romance" entails her falling over furniture. Then there's a young woman (Maggie Grace) who has a rep as a "wedding trasher" trying to fix her bad rep by working with Irons on the wedding of a Boston politician. She falls for a musician in a band she's trying to book.
Back to the game show. Dugan snarls through his bit whereby four randomly chosen "couples" are literally chained together at the waist (they have panic buttons). Whichever couple lasts the longest wins the money. Two people I never heard get chained. He's the brother of the Boston pol and she's a Russian mafia moll. The fourth would-be couple has a Boston tour guide searching for the passenger with a "glass slipper" tattooed on her neck (I kid you not) since he's fallen instantly in love with her.
In between these various arcs, a HUGELY annoying fat street singer woman yowls and plays a guitar. Of course, all these disparate people come together for the wedding which is total chaos and everybody has a good time.
It is beyond me how many good film projects cannot get funding but there's always money for garbage like this. How desperate must Irons and Keaton have been to get involved?
Back to the game show. Dugan snarls through his bit whereby four randomly chosen "couples" are literally chained together at the waist (they have panic buttons). Whichever couple lasts the longest wins the money. Two people I never heard get chained. He's the brother of the Boston pol and she's a Russian mafia moll. The fourth would-be couple has a Boston tour guide searching for the passenger with a "glass slipper" tattooed on her neck (I kid you not) since he's fallen instantly in love with her.
In between these various arcs, a HUGELY annoying fat street singer woman yowls and plays a guitar. Of course, all these disparate people come together for the wedding which is total chaos and everybody has a good time.
It is beyond me how many good film projects cannot get funding but there's always money for garbage like this. How desperate must Irons and Keaton have been to get involved?
Dont waste your time or money. What a sh#t show. SMH
nancystorey6 December 2020
DO NOT WASTE YOUR TIME
SaraKay8013 June 2021
OMG what an absolute pile of rubbish, do not be fooled by the fact they somehow (god only knows) managed to cast Keaton and Irons in this disaster of a movie.
I'm so glad I watched it at home as I was able to turn it off after the painful 40 minutes I actually gave trying to give it a chance.
Feels like a made for TV movie without the cheese.
I'm so glad I watched it at home as I was able to turn it off after the painful 40 minutes I actually gave trying to give it a chance.
Feels like a made for TV movie without the cheese.
Better than I had expected
juanbigtaco13 February 2021
Don't know why there are so many haters for this one. As somebody who normally avoids Diane Keaton movies, I was surprised by how good this one was. I think they could have stretched it out a bit longer to fill in a bit more for each of the different couples, but there wasn't one dull moment, great pacing, lots of laughs, great date movie.
Grating and mostly insulting, it's a formulaic film with decent acting
siderite20 April 2022
This film was recommended by some web site and it was quite impossible to enjoy. You've seen it before: the quirky characters (all of them) speaking fast, smiling, making jokes and having mishaps, but in the end coming together and becoming better. I found all characters incredibly grating. I know it's targeted to an audience that likes to think they are quirky and interesting when in fact they are annoying and stupid, so I understand where it came from, but the characters and setup alone just made it feel like a bad stand-up comedy show: A guy comes on stage, starts telling you about his friends and family, laughing at his own jokes, and you just don't see what he thinks it's funny, but you paid for the seat and your date is laughing so you endure. The scene where some relatives arrive at work with an impromptu date "intervention", where the blind date is actually blind and the first thing she does is topple a table was cringeworthy and quite offensive for both table makers and blind people. Ugh!
Funny enough, I wanted to see this film with my wife and she had other things to do. It was the right choice.
And it's too bad, because the actors in the film are doing a decent job, or at least I have a lot of nostalgia about them so I didn't mind their work. The thing is, this was released in 2020 and it feels like a 1990 movie with futuristic phones.
Funny enough, I wanted to see this film with my wife and she had other things to do. It was the right choice.
And it's too bad, because the actors in the film are doing a decent job, or at least I have a lot of nostalgia about them so I didn't mind their work. The thing is, this was released in 2020 and it feels like a 1990 movie with futuristic phones.
It's not bad...
RosanaBotafogo6 February 2022
It's not bad, however considering the synopsis and the casting of actors I expected much more, very little eh funny, it went far from romanticism, exaggerated situations, which keep us away from empathy, making it less pleasant than it could have been...
Dire
dartmouth-3901313 January 2022
Warning: Spoilers
Everyone in this film seems to be embarrassed.
It is just horribly inept and ...just bad.
Why does Diane Keaton move weirdly and use a false voice because her character is blind, and is she wearing a bad wig.
Why is the band featured in the film just awful to the point that the wildly enthusiastic audience adds an element of the grotesque?
Jeremy Irons seems slightly embarrassed in trying not to over play his cliched and unreal character.
Every role is cliched and unreal. And therefore impossible to represent with dignity to give the actors their due.
To make sure that there is no break in the torture events are 'linked' together by a really mediocre couple of folk singers. Don't tell me they are very famous and this doomed project has managed to destroy them too!
It is boring embarrassing film badly written, fragmented and unfunny wasting precious time for viewers and the quite respectable cast involved.
It is just horribly inept and ...just bad.
Why does Diane Keaton move weirdly and use a false voice because her character is blind, and is she wearing a bad wig.
Why is the band featured in the film just awful to the point that the wildly enthusiastic audience adds an element of the grotesque?
Jeremy Irons seems slightly embarrassed in trying not to over play his cliched and unreal character.
Every role is cliched and unreal. And therefore impossible to represent with dignity to give the actors their due.
To make sure that there is no break in the torture events are 'linked' together by a really mediocre couple of folk singers. Don't tell me they are very famous and this doomed project has managed to destroy them too!
It is boring embarrassing film badly written, fragmented and unfunny wasting precious time for viewers and the quite respectable cast involved.
Funny and enjoyable
michkerr14 February 2021
Adorable
jzbelle-549223 January 2021
torture
emmanuel-glenn15 January 2022
There is so much wrong with this movie which is unfortunate because at heart it could have worked. But it just felt a little wooden and clunky. It was like everyone was just going through the motions to make a buck on another poor imitation of the great British rom com movies. As for the actors, Jeremy Irons was good but the others were below par.
Terrible...
orrohan2 June 2021
Rubbish
saratonkinson21 August 2021
Seriously awful....
douggordy2 June 2021
How could something starring Keaton and Irons be so miserably awful, nah, cringe-worthy. They should both be horribly embarrassed, esp. Keaton, who is offensive in her portrayal of a blind woman (and the tokenism of having a dwarf character and then making fun of him is also reprehensible). The other story lines are almost equally abhorrent - only Maggie Grace manages not to be a total waste of time. There is a reason this only has a 4% 'fresh' rating on Rotten Tomatoes. Avoid it like the plague it is.
Why the hate?
ts-00007 June 2021
A 50/50 film
kimlin5027 May 2021
This starts slow and disjointed, almost reminiscent of a bad version of Love Actually. By the second half it has picked up and you start to relate to the characters, everything slowly makes more sense and you get the expected happy feel good Cinderella ending.
Bad on so many levels
kmayer-2776513 February 2021
Ok rom com
jonsid575 March 2021
Ah well...
BandSAboutMovies18 February 2021
Warning: Spoilers
Dennis Dugan is known for the movies he's directed for Adam Sandler, including Happy Gilmore, Big Daddy, I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry, You Don't Mess with the Zohan, Grown Ups, Just Go with It, Jack and Jill and Grown Ups 2, which has made him a four-time Golden Raspberry Worst Director nominee. He also made Problem Child, Brain Donors, Beverly Hills Ninja and several other films that critics abhorred.
He wrote this with Eileen Conn and Larry Miller, directing from his own screenplay. And what we get is, well, it's one of those romantic comedies that have plotlines that intersect like Crash and not the one with Elias Koteas leading a cult of car crash sex lovers.
It's interesting to me that if this movie was only about the relationship between the perfectionist chef played by Jeremy Irons and the blind photographer well-acted by Diane Keaton, this would have been a movie that people talked about. Instead, that story is just one thread in a much larger fabric that really doesn't add up.
Also, this movie has more people tripping over furniture than any movie you will ever see. So many people trip over furniture that I was waiting for Dick Van Dyke to show up and fall over a chesterfield sofa.
I thought that with the death of Garry Marshall, we'd see the end of this kind of movie, a romcom that unites a cast of many to tell a story that brings them together and wraps up with everyone happy. God does not play dice, so all these coincidences in the story have to make sense. That said, She does allow movies like this to be made, I guess.
Some of the actors appearing in this are JinJoo Lee from the band DNCE, Jesse McCartney from Dream Street, German actress Veronica Ferres, Maggie Grace from Lost as the wedding planner around who this film revolves, internet creator King Bach, Rob Schneider's daughter Elle King (this movie has a propensity of musicians as actors), musician Keaton Simons (who in addition to being a musician is the stepson of Eric Roberts), Melinda Hill, Richard Kline (Larry from Three's Company) and Dugan himself as a game show host.
That said, I'm sure there's an audience for this, someone that wants a big silly movie to get them through the loneliness of quarantine. The idea of someone who trashed a wedding becoming the person in charge of an important wedding is a good one. And who knows? You may love this. I kind of respected its commitment to being as loud as possible, as well as, like I said, a movie where people continually crash into one another and careen over all manner of armchairs and other examples of furniture.
Love, Wedding & Other Disasters has just been released on blu ray. It's been streaming for some time, so there are many places where you can watch it. We were generously given a copy to review and obviously, the gift of free movies has not lured me into just giving away good reviews.
Man, I feel like I should say something nice, beyond the fact that I really liked the late age romance between Irons and Keaton. Hmm. Alright. Maggie Grave is beyond gorgeous in this with blonde hair. Also, I kind of liked the brother of the groom who is chained to an exotic dancer throughout the movie, all for opportunity to win a reality show.
He wrote this with Eileen Conn and Larry Miller, directing from his own screenplay. And what we get is, well, it's one of those romantic comedies that have plotlines that intersect like Crash and not the one with Elias Koteas leading a cult of car crash sex lovers.
It's interesting to me that if this movie was only about the relationship between the perfectionist chef played by Jeremy Irons and the blind photographer well-acted by Diane Keaton, this would have been a movie that people talked about. Instead, that story is just one thread in a much larger fabric that really doesn't add up.
Also, this movie has more people tripping over furniture than any movie you will ever see. So many people trip over furniture that I was waiting for Dick Van Dyke to show up and fall over a chesterfield sofa.
I thought that with the death of Garry Marshall, we'd see the end of this kind of movie, a romcom that unites a cast of many to tell a story that brings them together and wraps up with everyone happy. God does not play dice, so all these coincidences in the story have to make sense. That said, She does allow movies like this to be made, I guess.
Some of the actors appearing in this are JinJoo Lee from the band DNCE, Jesse McCartney from Dream Street, German actress Veronica Ferres, Maggie Grace from Lost as the wedding planner around who this film revolves, internet creator King Bach, Rob Schneider's daughter Elle King (this movie has a propensity of musicians as actors), musician Keaton Simons (who in addition to being a musician is the stepson of Eric Roberts), Melinda Hill, Richard Kline (Larry from Three's Company) and Dugan himself as a game show host.
That said, I'm sure there's an audience for this, someone that wants a big silly movie to get them through the loneliness of quarantine. The idea of someone who trashed a wedding becoming the person in charge of an important wedding is a good one. And who knows? You may love this. I kind of respected its commitment to being as loud as possible, as well as, like I said, a movie where people continually crash into one another and careen over all manner of armchairs and other examples of furniture.
Love, Wedding & Other Disasters has just been released on blu ray. It's been streaming for some time, so there are many places where you can watch it. We were generously given a copy to review and obviously, the gift of free movies has not lured me into just giving away good reviews.
Man, I feel like I should say something nice, beyond the fact that I really liked the late age romance between Irons and Keaton. Hmm. Alright. Maggie Grave is beyond gorgeous in this with blonde hair. Also, I kind of liked the brother of the groom who is chained to an exotic dancer throughout the movie, all for opportunity to win a reality show.
Great ensemble cast
danicanau30 August 2021
I cannot understand the panning of this film in many of the reviews here. I thought this film was very sweet and had some great talent. This film was such an unexpected surprise considering the world we're living in at the moment. It's not groundbreaking but it's not supposed to be. It's a romantic comedy- lighten up!
Adorable!
davidhukill11 November 2021
How this movie is only rated a 5 is beyond me. Cute, funny, and well done! A very pleasant surprise. So if you're looking for a mindless, but sweet rom-com to pass away some Friday evening, this will certainly fit the bill.
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