SLIFF 2010 Review: COUNTRY WEDDING

Review by Mike Gregory

Big social events take a lot of coordinating and planning, but no matter how much you plan, prepare, and schedule, Murphy’s Law is always going to come into effect in one way or another. That’s what one group of Icelanders is going to find out when they try to marry off Inga (Nanna Kristín Magnúsdóttir) and Bardi (Björn Hlynur Haraldsson). They can’t find the church. The nearly-senile grandmother wanders off. It’s the little things that go wrong (usually), but they are believable.

The problem with the film is that while the performances are spot-on (I felt like I was watching a home movie of a wedding), there’s no character identification. Not only does this make things confusing as to who is who, but it also limits the amount of humor that can be culled from this material. The filmmakers could also have shaved off a few scenes to keep it shorter because it does lose steam in the final twenty minutes.

This may work better for people who have experienced the chaos that is a wedding, but I will admit I felt the tension that the characters did.

COUNTRY WEDDING  will play during the 19th Annual Stella Artois St. Louis International Film Festival on Monday, November 15th at 7:00 pm and Tuesday, November 16th at 9:30 pm at the Hi-Pointe Theatre.