Love. Wedding. Repeat
LOVE. WEDDING. REPEAT - NETFLIXThere are many things that British filmmakers do well, but one thing in particular is their penchant for finding humour in dark situations where things just go wrong. Dean Craig’s Love Wedding Repeat is a worthy addition to this canon, taking place on a wedding day that is, for all involved, fated to go wrong from the get-go.
What’s most interesting about Love Wedding Repeat is its set-up as a film about chance and fate and their ongoing battle within the universe. The wedding-day-goes-wrong plotline has been explored in romantic comedy many times before, and a similar re-tread of familiar ground could easily have made for a predictable film. However, Love Wedding Repeat leads with its thematic interest in the idea that whilst fate may have decided the paths of, say, two lovers destined to meet, there’s always the possibility that chance will come along and mess things up. Some would say no matter what chance does to a situation, fate will always prevail and put things back on track. However, some would say that’s nonsense and that everything that has ever happened is totally random. These are life’s big questions, and for the most part, Love Wedding Repeat successfully posits them to its audience.
The film plays its humour well with funny and engaging characters and a strong cast who each play their role perfectly in crafting a room full of people who probably shouldn’t be together. Sam Claflin’s lead Jack is well-mannered and ill-fated and it’s great fun to watch him try and hold together a day that the universe is determined to change the plans to.
As already mentioned, the film’s most interesting aspect is its cosmic happenstance spin on the rom-com, and for the most part it does this well. To its own detriment though, Love Wedding Repeat also tends to forget this thematic idea and, in those moments, devolves into tropes that can be seen coming a mile off. It’s annoying, as there’s so much more that could be done with the Groundhog Day, Happy Death Day-esque alternate timeline ideas that the film explores, but it never seems too interested in taking them further.
Regardless of its shortcomings, Love Wedding Repeat is an entertaining, funny, well-performed film, and its clichés and tropes are sweet and light-hearted enough to accept. Had it stuck to its thematic ideas a little more and perhaps lost 20 or so minutes of material that was mostly there for comedic value, it’d certainly play out a lot tighter and would appear to be more substantive in being something fresh and original. As it is though, it’s a fun and engaging watch and is definitely worth the time.
LOVE. WEDDING. REPEAT is streaming exclusively on NETFLIX