At a wedding, Ruth’s (Inma Cuesta, Blancanieves) boyfriend Pedro (Berto Romero, Spanish Wedding) breaks the news that she is not the one for him – in public, and with personal details. The awkward combination of nuptials and exes doesn’t end there. Three months later, a trio of invites sees Ruth en route to celebrate Pedro’s marital bliss, and to attend ceremonies for two of her other previous partners. The wedding of laid-back surfer Mikel (Paco León, Mediterranean Food) brings hope of new love, but also another round of embarrassment. Attending the marriage of Álex (Laura Sánchez, Spanish TV series La fuga), now a transgender woman, reinforces her back luck with romance.
Three Many Weddings (Tres bodas de más) springs from the chick flick rom-com playbook complete with all the clichés and misgivings such a description inspires, as the inexplicably erratic Ruth bumbles her way through one humiliation after another. At work as a laboratory-based marine biologist specialising in lobsters, she endures the constant derision of her pregnant boss (María Botto, My Life in Ruins), with handsome young intern Dani (Martiño Rivas, People in Places) her only friend. When she meets plastic surgeon Jonás (Quim Gutiérrez, Family United), she thinks her misfortune has come to an end, but nothing in her life goes according to plan.
When the film is not subjecting its protagonist to every generic uncomfortable scenario seen before in features of similar ilk – ceremony hijinks, excruciating speeches, drunken mistakes, toilet mishaps, and viral videos among them, as filtered through a boisterous focus on bodily functions – it paints her as a hopeless romantic fool to support its fantasy of Ruth finding herself in an ideal amorous encounter. Attempts to invest depth in the character are relegated to montages of her singing off-key or pining along to love ballads. Other than Dani, her only support comes from her take-charge, man-eating mother (Rossy de Palma, Broken Embraces).
Director Javier Ruiz Caldera (Ghost Graduation) and writers Pablo Alén and Breixo Corral (TV’s The Boarding School) don’t just aim for broad humour and mine obvious targets in their by-the-numbers effort – but neither do they do anything to improve the flimsiness of the feature. Instead, the trio appears content to ape the two British films that have had the most influence, Four Weddings and A Funeral and Bridget Jones’s Diary, but without the subtlety that made each a hit. Derivation mixed with dumbing down is the name of the game, as the movie trundles towards its inevitable happy ending.
It is left to Cuesta and Rivas to conjure up charm where the concept and content is lacking, and it is a testament to their affable presence that they make their two-dimensional characters endearing, if not involving. In their returning collaborations with Caldera, the same can be said of the glistening lensing of cinematographer Arnau Valls Colomer (Here’s the Deal), and the quick pacing of editor Alberto de Toro (Tasting Menu), who provide the best packaging they can for uninspiring material. Alas, even with smatterings of successful elements, Three Many Weddings remains one film too many.
Rating: 2 out of 5 stars
Three Many Weddings (Tres bodas de más)
Director: Javier Ruiz Caldera
Spain, 2013, 94 mins
Spanish Film Festival
www.spanishfilmfestival.com
Sydney: 29 April – 18 May, Palace Verona and Palace Norton Street
Melbourne: 30 April – 18 May, Palace Cinema Como, Palace Westgarth & Kino Cinema
Brisbane: 1 – 14 May, Palace Barracks and Palace Centro
Canberra: 1 – 14 May, Palace Electric Cinema
Perth: 6 – 21 May, Cinema Paradiso
Adelaide: 6 – 21 May, Palace Nova Eastend Cinema
Byron Bay: 8 – 14 May, Palace Byron Bay
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