Who's in It: Martin Freeman, Jessica Stevenson, Stephen Mangan, Meredith MacNeill, Robert Webb, Olivia Colman
The Basics: It's a fake documentary, like Waiting for Guffman, only set in England, and it's about three couples competing to see who can throw the most original wedding. One couple wants to sing and dance the whole thing, another goes for a tennis theme, a third wants to be naked. And you know how boring actual weddings are? Well, guess what? Most movies about them are, too.
What's the Deal? Improvised mockumentaries … suddenly there are entire sections devoted to them in video stores. Why is this? Who decided improv was so special? Almost all of them suck except for Christopher Guest's movies, and even he's not always reliable. Gimme one of those yuppified Richard Curtis movies like Love Actually or Four Weddings and a Funeral any day. At least someone took the time to write scripts for those.
Who's Good: Martin Freeman, the everyguy from the U.K. series The Office. When the movie decides to suddenly get all heartfelt and lame, he keeps himself together.
Modern Clichés Are Still Clichés: Naturally, there are gay wedding planners here, campy and fun, fun, fun, yet still full of helpful sanity and wisdom. Add it to the list of ridiculous stereotypes that good art breaks down instead of puffing up.
You Know What an Awesome Wedding Movie Is? Robert Altman's A Wedding. Also, I dig that really stupid top hat that Molly Ringwald wore in Betsy's Wedding, the one you know she picked out for herself in spite of whatever the costume designer advised. I don't know why I just thought of that, but I did.