Conference bookie::movies

    I can only agree, I saw it some time ago and found it excellent, too.
    
    A.

    
    I saw it this past saturday in Acton and agree that it's quite good.
    I was suprised that the distribution is as wide as it is. 
    
    A question my woman friend had was what other films has Muriel's
    friend played in..  She was good and looked familar..
    
    -D
    

This film seems to be polarizing reviewers; I've read good reviews of it (Roger
Ebert, I think) and two complete slams of it, both from New York. I skimmed
them both; the Village Voice review was essentially "What's with these movies
from Australia that celebrate crassness?" (lumping this in with Strictly
Ballroom, which I thought was well-done), the New York Magazine review was
essentially "How could anyone identify with a lump like her?". Now, I'm an
ex-New Yorker for good reason, and still plan to see the movie, but would
anyone want to back up this dissenting point of view? 

							Richie

    
    If you like Abba, go see it for the soundtrack!
    
    - Sean

    re .3

>the Village Voice review was essentially "What's with these movies
>from Australia that celebrate crassness?" (lumping this in with Strictly
>Ballroom, which I thought was well-done), the New York Magazine review was
>essentially "How could anyone identify with a lump like her?". Now, I'm an
>ex-New Yorker for good reason, and still plan to see the movie, but would
>anyone want to back up this dissenting point of view? 
  
    I'm not from Australia, but at times I could identify with Muriel (not
    Mariel). I agree most with Anthony Lane's review in The New Yorker:
    that it wants to be a black comedy but rather turns dark, but that Toni
    Collette and Rachel Griffiths keep it from getting too bleak. 

    Rachel Griffiths plays Rhonda, and I thought she was fantastic. I don't
    know if we've seen her before in a film released in the US, but she
    looks a lot like Juliet Lewis.

    The use of the Abba music was clever in that the songs coincided with 
    the plot. It was hysterical when they donned white satin and did 
    "Waterloo".

    Lisa

re:  "crassness"...  Not the noter's word or attitude, I
know.  But from the VV critic in question, interestingly 
judgemental.  

The neverending problem seems to be that American 
audiences and critics seem to think that if the film 
is in English that it should reflect American values 
and standards.  I can't think how many times I've seen
similar slams against British and Australian film/tele-
vision.  Word to the critic:  It's a different culture, 
you ignorant pillock!

Off soapbox, back to the movie.

>>The neverending problem seems to be that American 
>>audiences and critics seem to think that if the film 
>>is in English that it should reflect American values 
>>and standards. 

 It would be nice to think you meant _some_ American
 audiences and critics. 

    RE:792.2
    
>    A question my woman friend had was what other films has Muriel's
>    friend played in..  She was good and looked familar..
    
    I just saw this last night. If I might suggest a possibility...my movie
    group and I were astonished by the friend's resemblance to Juliette
    Lewis.
    
    John
    
    PS: Thumbs up to the movie. Not excellent, IMO, but good.

  I saw "Muriel's Wedding" over the weekend with a friend.  She hated it (I
  mean _really_ hated it) whereas I, on the other hand, merely disliked it.
  This will be the first dissenting review I guess (along the lines of Village
  Voice and NY Magazine).

  The promos had me expecting a light quirky comedic drama from Australia along
  the lines of "Priscilla" or "Sum of Us." Perhaps my definition of quirky is
  off.  To me quirky is used in a positive fashion, denoting something which is
  untypical in a fun and light manner (quirky sense of humour, quirky sense of
  dress, quirky manner of speaking), different but unharmful.  If the
  strangeness going on is negative and dark and heavy, the words 'peculiar' and
  'odd' seemed to be used instead.  "Muriel" wasn't a light quirky fun movie
  with some Abba thrown in to accentuate the moments of high-spirited fun, it
  was a heavy dark depressing movie about dark depressing heavy people with
  some Abba thrown in to highlight the main character's complete dysfunction.
  Ugh!

  This movie was dismal, it was all about dysfunction.  Everyone in the movie
  was dysfunctional to the extreme.  The only exception was Rhonda, whose spunk
  and free-spirit captured me.  When I read about the NY Magazine review
  by-line {paraphrazing} "Who could feel anything for a lump like Muriel," I
  was offended.  I said to myself "but that's the whole point! She is a plain
  Jane, no model, but we'll find what a fun and great person she is despite her
  non-Hollywood looks." Well after the movie, I can't believe this, but yeah I
  have to say it too...  "who could feel anything for a lump like Muriel."

  Every moment on the screen was a moment of dysfunction.  Each moment was
  either painful, uncomfortable or just plain depressing to watch.  Who could
  feel anything for any of these sit-around-the-house-all-day-watching-TV
  lumps...  the unloving 'fix it with cash' father, the walk-all-over-me jello
  mother, the sickening 'mouch' "underwear is daywear" son, the couch potato
  daughter whose only role is to tattle on "you're ter-rible" Muriel, and
  Muriel herself, the brightest of the bunch, who in her mid-twenties has no
  concept of cause and effect, whereby she shoplifts dresses for parties,
  steals her lower-income parent's money for a vacation (to the tune of $12K),
  and never realizes any of the possible the outcomes of these events, not even
  the possibility of getting caught.  Oy, what a family!! 

  I was able to keep looking past Muriel's negative character attributes and
  her crimes, hoping for her to finally wake up and turn herself around, until
  three quarters the way into the movie.  I reached my breaking point.  Muriel
  really lost it for me when she just "didn't even think" about her best friend
  Rhonda (the ONLY character in the whole movie I either liked or could feel
  anything for) that Rhonda, being now restricted to a wheelchair, would be
  left unable to pay the rent without her and unable to get around and shop
  without her too.  The thought never occurred to her.  And then when she
  presented Rhonda with a plane ticket for a flight to go live back home with
  her mother after so many discussions about how that would just kill her, when
  Muriel didn't even put "would kill Rhonda to live back in her mother's home"
  + "plane tickets" = "unhappy Rhonda" and in a complete disconnect from
  reality happily presented the tickets to Rhonda as a token of friendship and
  then even furthermore was hurt and surprised that Rhonda didn't just jump out
  of her wheelchair in supreme glee for her when she presented them adding
  insult to injury (her leaving Rhonda), my, what kind of an unthinking lump
  are you Muriel!! She lost it for me.

  This was the sort of movie where you sit there wanting to whack these people
  on the side of the head and yell "Wake Up!" to them.  It was painful to sit
  through.  The only moment of joy that came to me in the movie, involved their
  back yard.  The son lazily spends his entire day kicking a milk carton around
  the fenced backyard the size of a patio.  He runs around in the unkempt
  let-grow-wild grass which is knee high on him, kicking the milk carton,
  giving a spoken play-by-play as if he (in his underwear) were the nation's
  biggest European football star.  That grass!! My moment of joy came in the
  scene where you are shown that neglected backyard flat and it is black, smoky
  and smouldering, as all the grass had been burnt...  there, phew, all least
  _something_ in their completely dysfunctional world was set right.  :-) It
  was enough to send a gardener through the ceiling...

  I like several black comedies, the problem is I didn't see any comedy here at
  all, there was nothing humorous about it, any of it.  This was just
  altogether too bleak and dark.  It didn't show life from another unique point
  of view, it didn't turn any tables on modern day thinking.  The image I'm
  left with when I hear Abba now is Muriel slouching beside her pink tape
  player escaping into a dysfunction-driven fantasy trip into Abba-land.  I had
  new hopes for a turn-around and the film itself picked up when Rhonda stepped
  into the film and the two of them danced to Waterloo in triumph over the
  'in-girls'.  Rhonda is the only character that carried the film for me.  I
  liked her character immensely.  But even despite that she still wasn't enough
  to counteract either fantasy-Mariel or Muriel, who quickly drove the film
  back down into its bleak depths again, even despite her saviour Rhonda.  At
  the very very end, she shows a glimmer of hope, but it wasn't enough for me
  to see that she still wasn't the old irresponsible and totally-unaware-of-
  her-actions Muriel who'd screw Rhonda over in another total unthinking
  selfish haze by the end again anyway.

  There was so much disconnect from reality, from recognizing cause and effect
  (ie, shoplifting w/o thought to getting caught, stealing money via a blank
  check given to her by her parents and then being surprised when the parents
  inquire about the $12K balance drop, of thinking the plane tickets would
  cause joy in Rhonda, in thinking the vacuous popular girls will magically
  change their minds and accept her if she just shows up at the vacation spot
  they dumped her for before leaving, etc), that it almost seems they were
  trying to portray her as a mentally challenged character.  But she wasn't.
  And in the end you came away feeling she was just an unthinking selfish lump
  in the worst place possible, in her inner-character, without paying any heed
  to her visual appearance.

  This just didn't do it for me.  Two stars out of five. [However both
  actresses did a phenomenal acting job here and deserve kudos for that].

  -Erik

Usually spoilers such as in .9 ruin a movie for me, but in this case they
may have helped because they prepared me for the fact that most of the
characters aren't very nice and bad things happen to some of them.  As it
was I thought the movie was good, and quite funny in some places (zipper!).
Of course it helped that I'm an Abba fan.

				-- Bob

    
    people mag sez toni collette (muriel), after being told she was
    "perfect, but too thin" for the role, ate 6 meals a day for two months
    - packing on 42 pounds - to get the part.  after filming, she spent
    3 mos. getting back to her fighting weight of 140 (at 5'8" and a half).
    
    bill

    Never ceases to amaze me how differently we all see things. I loved
    this movie - yes it was dark and disturbing in places, yes it was
    exaggerated in places, but that (for me) was part of what was great
    about it. Different viewpoints - part of what makes the world turn :-)
    
    Rob

Well, maybe hate is a strong word, but after reading .9, I was wondering
how you could only give it 2/5?  If there was such a strong reaction to
the movie, how could you give it less than 4/5?  I am always looking out
for movies that make me react in one way or another - for most movies, I
just think "well, another Hollywood yawn" (I am not talking about reaction
to bad writing/directing/acting...)


When I went to see Muriel's wedding, I thought "ugh, another feel-good
Harry meets Sally movie".  But, it had many more layers beyond that, as
.9 pointed out.  Plus, that cool Abba music.  Definitely a thumbs up.


-joe

    So, what is the plot of this movie?
    
    I've read lots of opinions, but no
    discussion of the plot.
    
    Would someone please just give a
    "what happened" synopsis?
    
    Thanks

    I'll try to remember after the form feed. Pls apologize if something
    is not in correct English.
    A.
    
    
    Muriel is living with her family in a small town in Australia. It is a
    very strange family. The father is a local politician and has a love
    affair with the owner of a beauty institute. Everybody except his wife
    knows about that. The wife, Muriel's mother, is a ugly, untidy person, who
    is watching TV the whole day with Muriels sisters and brothers and
    whose only right to exist is to clean the house and to cook.
    Muriel is very unhappy in her family. Her only amusement is to listen
    to ABBA songs. She admires her fellow students, who are all very beautiful,
    slim and have boy friends. Muriel' biggest wish is to marry. But there
    is no boy who is interested in her, and also her girlfriends are
    ashamed for her and do not want that she accompanies them anymore.
    
    One day she has the chance to get hold of a blank cheque of her father.
    She buys nice clothes and makes a trip to a holiday resort, where she
    meets a former girl friend of her. This girl friend (I do not remember
    the name) helps her to be more self confident and persuades her to
    leave her family and to live with her in the capital. Muriel finds a
    job in a video shop and even gets to know a young man and has her
    first date. 
    Up to this point the story is mostly funny. Then it starts to become 
    tragic. It turns out, that Muriel's girlfriend has cancer. She has 
    to undergo surgery and is confined to the wheel-chair. Muriel cares for 
    her. Then she answers to an ad where they look for a woman who is 
    willing to make a mock marriage with a foreign swimmer, who wants to 
    participate in the olympic games. They marry and Muriel's biggest 
    wish became true - she is a bride ! It is not important for her, that
    she knows, that the husband has no real feelings for her.
    The newspapers are full with her photos and her former schoolfellows 
    are envious. Only her girlfriend is disappointed, as Muriel left her
    and she therefore was forced to return to her mother, as she needs 
    somebody to care for her. 
    Then Muriel's mother commits suicide. The family veils that fact and
    say it was a heart attack. The father's mistress immediately moves in.
    The family also expects that Muriel returns to the family to care for her
    sisters and brothers and to keep the house clean, as her mother did.
    But Muriel refuses. She is not willing to have the same fate as her 
    mother.
    Muriel returns to her husband, and although he begins to show signs of
    sympathy for her and even spends the night with her, she gives him back
    the money she was paid and annuls the marriage.
    She has found out who is the only valuable person in her life -
    her girl-friend. She calls for her at her mother's home and they return
    to the capital to live together again.
    
    

    Well, now I'm in a quandry. The first reviews make me want to rent the
    video; then Erik's review put me off. My wife is a psych nurse, so a
    little quirky dysfunction in a movie would probably amuse her, but
    unrelenting dysfunction would become annoying. Now, Andrea's synopsis
    gives the feeling that maybe it's not as dark as all that after all.
    
    We'll see. Time around our house is in short supply, but we might take
    a chance on it.

Re -.1

Rent it.  It's a funny and poignant movie.

/Mike