Did you people see the same film I saw?

A bit overrated, but still an amazing film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It's a movie as timely as it is provocative and amazingly, for much of its running time, it is weirdly funny.

Muriel's WeddingThe best thing about wedding season in Australian is that it's winter so your summers aren't completely ruined.Desperate to escape her overbearing parents (Bill Hunter, Jeanie Drynan), hopeless romantic and ABBA super-fan Muriel (Toni Collette) steals money from them and goes on a tropical vacation.She returns home a new woman and gets a flat and roommate (Rachel Griffiths). But these lifestyle changes don't keep her life from falling apart. And as her parents split, her friend gets ill and she drowns in debt, Muriel must grow up in order to stay afloat.More depressing drama than laugh-out-loud comedy, this 1994 sleeper hit from Down Under deals with the harsh realities of becoming an adult, but manages to soften their edges with dark-humor and an up-tempo soundtrack dominated by the aforementioned Swedish pop group.Incidentally, always seat your Australian wedding guests as far from the gift table as possible.Green Lightvidiotreviews.blogspot.ca

I think the more you recognize Muriel Heslop the more you will identify with her journey. Muriel has insecurities, tries to fit in with the 'in crowd' and lives with her indifferent family in which her father looks down upon her and her lazy siblings and growls 'You are all bloody worthless'.Muriel has dreams but doesn't know how to approach them. She sits in her room in the dreamy swirl of white wedding dreams and the music of ABBA (their songs seem to act as a Greek chorus for Muriel's plight). No one is ever convinced that she will ever get married so it's no surprise that when she catches the bouquet at a wedding the other girls complain 'Just give it back Muriel, you'll never get married'.Stalking a group of snobbish, spoiled, unhappy twentysomethings who don't want her around Muriel is tries to be friends with them. She follows them to an island resort where she meets up with her old friend Rhonda who really DOES like Muriel and in fact tells Muriel's husband hunting 'friends' where they can go.With a new sense of self-esteem Muriel christens herself 'Mariel' and moves to Sydney with Rhonda. Still caught up in the idea that marriage will bring her happiness 'Mariel' decides to marry a South African swimmer so that he can get on the Austrailian Olympic team. Her wedding is a sham and everyone knows it, they all stand around looking disgusted or horrified or both.I can't go any further without spoiling it. At this point several things happen that we have no reason to anticipate. I love it when you are sure the you know exactly where a movie is going and then it turns on you and comes up with new ideas. I love movies that you can't anticipate.Muriel's search for true happiness is not laid out in a series of sitcom plots and lame misunderstandings. We watch a girl who is misguided by how to find true happiness and has to learn some hard lessons. At one point Muriel tells Rhonda 'I use to sit in my room and listen to ABBA songs, now my life is as good as an ABBA song. For Muriel this is a loving compliment.

priceless movie magic: the end of the movie with Muriel and Rhonda in the taxi on the way to Sydney. the look on Muriel's face...ahh, only a great actress can accomplish that, there was so much emotion running through that look, to me it was so bittersweet and that look summed up the whole movie. finally got to see this movie 20 years after its release, and i'm a big fan of Toni Collete. i gave this movie an 8 out of 10 and it is probably a little underrated at 7.2 although that is not shabby at all. the movie feels like it was made on a micro-budget(for sure under a million dollars) and it just shows you that you can still create movie magic with-out a big budget. the movie feels so real, i know families like that and it takes a major effort to break out of surroundings like that and at the end of the movie i think Muriel did accomplish that and was able to feel confident in her own skin. this was by no small feat accomplished by her far-out there real friend Rhonda. these 2 characters made up the whole movie for me. what happened to Muriel's mom was so heartbreaking. not counting what she did to herself at the end, plenty of women live through what she lived through and in a blink you are old and unfulfilled wondering what happened?great movies take you on a trip without you even noticing it and this movie certainly did it for me...a well spent 100 minutes of my life. Toni Collete has got some serious acting chops and is one of my favorite actresses.again to me it is not a feel-good movie, it is really bittersweet and oh that look on Muriel's face at the end...this is going to be one of those timeless classics and if call yourself a fan of movies this is a must see...Enjoy!

First of all, this is obviously a chick-flick (I mean, it's a movie in which the main character is obsessed with getting married, so how could it not be one?) and if you purely take it as such, this movie still serves its purpose well and is also maintaining enough. However as a movie itself it is far too uneven and does just too much wrong to consider this a great movie in its sort.It's one of those movies that tries to combine humor with drama. And it's not very successful or effective at that, in my opinion. The movie never finds the right balance, since its comedy and characters themselves are being far too over-the-top, which never blends in very well with the movie its, supposedly, dramatic moments.But also a big problem of the movie lays with the movie its main character, played by Toni Collette. She lies to her best friends and own family, she steals and runs of with people's money and also doesn't always comes across as too bright. Somethings obviously wrong with her but in this movie you obviously are supposed to care for her and her naivety is supposed to be something sweet. Needless to say this did not always worked out that way for me at all.But it remains a movie with a sort of charm to it still. I mean, despite everything it remains a pleasant movie to watch, even while it still annoyed me at certain moments. But perhaps that is also because this is obviously supposed to be a chick-flick and I am clearly no chick last time I checked. So it's fair to say this movie is not really for me and women will be more capable of appreciating this movie for what it is.The story is also really lacking some focus at times. Sometimes certain plot lines are simply getting dropped and it often makes some sudden jumps with its story, that don't always connect too well. This also definitely goes at the expense of certain characters in this movie, which I was often more interested in.You can still see how this movie partly inspired 'Mamma Mia!' the musical and later also movie. The ABBA music often plays a central role in the movie and it often has the same sort of happy-go-lucky, colorful, type of atmosphere to it. Good and straightforward enough as a chick-flick but other than that, far too flawed to consider this a great movie.6/10http://bobafett1138.blogspot.com/