Posted by Mr. Beaks

It’s hard to think that anyone who’s seen The Wedding Crashers would have an adverse reaction to what I feel is a consistently uproarious film, but, then again, comedy is all about subjectivity.  What makes you laugh may hit me like The Sorrow and the Pity (granted, it has its moments) and vise versa.  For instance, just the other night, a friend forced me to watch a recent episode of The Family Guy that he felt would reduce me to bladder defeating paroxysms of laughter (his words, not mine; I don’t cotton to such fancy talk, especially when pants wetting is involved).  But while he and his roommate cackled throughout, I mustered only the occasional chortle at MacFarlane’s sharp non-sequiturs.

And let us not forget Old School.  The first review that ever ran was this evisceration by Mean Mr. Mustard at Ain't It Cool News, which hardly reflected the prevailing public sentiment once the film hit theaters. 

This is just a long-winded way of me saying that I’m not impugning the validity of the estimable Vern’s negative assessment from the other day.  At least, I don’t think I am.  Okay, fuck that, I really am, because, on a purely visceral level, The Wedding Crashers is one very funny movie.

By now you know the set-up:  Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson play Jeremy Klein and John Beckwith, two divorce mediators who cut a bacchanal swath through the summer wedding season, invading one wedding after another with scant regard to race, ethnicity or creed.  Not content to simply load up on free vittles and drinks, Jeremy and John, fun loving extroverts of the most rambunctious order, helplessly make themselves the life of the party, which invariably leads to the libidinal payoff that seems to be the point of their whole juvenile scheme.

But, as John wistfully notes in a rare moment of reflection, they’re not exactly young anymore.  And this weakening of his Dionysian resolve gets fully exploited when the boys ambitiously infiltrate the wedding of Treasury Secretary William Cleary’s (Christopher Walken) eldest daughter.  Though initially viewed as an opportunity for John to rub elbows with Cleary, whose position papers he greatly admires, destiny intercedes in the luminous form of Claire Cleary (Rachel McAdams), the Secretary’s middle daughter.  A generous soul, Claire instantly captivates John, though he soon finds he must vie for her affections with Sack Lodge (Bradley Cooper), the scion of an elite east coast clan. 

Jeremy, however, faces no such impediments in his woo pitching; he hits it off instantly with Gloria Cleary (Isla Fisher), the youngest, extremely spoiled daughter whose virginity he obliviously claims on a nearby beach as the reception rages.  Before Jeremy can button up his tuxedo front, Gloria is professing her undying devotion, and planning their future union.  Horrified, Jeremy wants to flee.  But John is smitten, so, when Gloria prevails upon her father to let the two interlopers – posing as very distant relatives – join the family for the weekend at the Cleary’s coastal estate, Jeremy gets hung out to dry as a decoy while his best friend courts true love.

This is where it all goes entertainingly haywire.  After a lunatic game of touch football, it soon becomes clear that Claire is the only sane member of the Cleary brood:  Gloria is a clingy psycho; their withdrawn artist of an only brother, Todd (Keir O’Donnell) is a masochistic, semi-closeted homosexual who develops a crazed fixation on Jeremy; and the matriarch, Kathleen (Jane Seymour) is an alcoholic serial philanderer keen to show off her impressive middle aged rack to anyone with serviceable eyesight.  And everyone gets a chance to inflict their neuroses on their alleged kin before the jig is inevitably up, at which point John must win Claire’s heart all over again.

There was no reason to expect, on the strength of Clay Pigeons and Shanghai Knights, that David Dobkin was primed to become a top studio comedy director, but here he is, shaming the likes of Andy Tennant, Robert Luketic and Adam Shankman with skillful gusto.  Dobkin hooks the audience early with an exuberantly shot and edited montage of the boys romping from the dance floor to the bedroom, scored to the Otis Dey and the Knights cover of “Shout” (which apparently has become a wedding reception staple).  Conjuring up the buoyantly licentious spirit of the film that immortalized that song, Dobkin wins us over, which proves integral during a risky third act stretch where a desperate John is repeatedly demoralized.  Straining for a deeper resonance than they’ve perhaps earned over the last ninety minutes, the movie loses its way for a time before rebounding winningly with the final set piece.

But it’s hard to begrudge Dobkin’s willingness to take such chances; after all, when you’ve got two remarkably versatile comedic talents like Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson at your disposal, both of whom are far from the one-note clowns that typically get cast in these formulaic vehicles, the upside seems limitless.  Though both get their share of laughs, The Butterscotch Stallion is essentially playing straight man to Vaughn’s deer-in-headlights routine, and the latter responds with a hugely satisfying, high-energy turn.  But it’s Isla Fisher who really kicks the film into overdrive, at times eclipsing Vaughn’s antics as a wild-eyed sexual dynamo with a possible homicidal bent.  It’s a grand, utterly insane performance that signals the arrival of a phenomenally gifted comedienne.

Strange as it may seem, The Wedding Crashers' effectiveness actually hinges on Claire, whose compassion for every member of her gone-bonkers brood imbues the film with an unexpected warmth.  There’s a wonderful moment early in the film where Claire giggles uncontrollably at the exchanging of some cringingly nautical vows between her sister and her betrothed.  Claire’s reaction is the same as ours, and when she gets busted for her slightly indecorous reaction, we feel complicit.  This is not easy to pull off.  Wickedly funny in Mean Girls and miraculously dignified in The Notebook, McAdams, with her deceptively casual work here, is making a bid for stardom.  Though there’s no shortage of unreasonably attractive young women populating Hollywood movies nowadays, I can’t think of a single actress of McAdams’s generation that I’d rather watch right now.