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Wedding Crashers

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Wedding Crashers
Theatrical release poster
Directed byDavid Dobkin
Starring
CinematographyJulio Macat
Edited byMark Livolsi
Music byRolfe Kent
Production
company
Tapestry Films
Distributed byNew Line Cinema
Release date
  • July 15, 2005 (2005-07-15)
Running time
119 minutes[1]
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$40 million[2]
Box office$285.2 million[2]

Wedding Crashers is a 2005 American comedy film directed by David Dobkin, written by Steve Faber and Bob Fisher, and starring Owen Wilson, Vince Vaughn, Christopher Walken, Rachel McAdams, Isla Fisher, Bradley Cooper, and Jane Seymour. The film follows two divorce mediators (Wilson and Vaughn) who crash weddings in an attempt to meet and seduce bridesmaids.

The film opened on July 15, 2005[3] through New Line Cinema to critical and massive commercial success, grossing $285 million worldwide on a $40 million budget, and is credited with helping to revive the popularity of adult-oriented, R-rated comedies.[4]

Plot

John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vince Vaughn) are divorce mediators in Washington D.C. who "crash" wedding parties to meet and bed women. At the end of a season of successful crashes, Jeremy takes John to a wedding for the daughter of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, William Cleary (Christopher Walken). Once inside, the pair set their sights on Cleary's other daughters, Gloria (Isla Fisher) and Claire (Rachel McAdams). Jeremy ends up having sex with Gloria on a nearby beach during the reception. Gloria is possessive and quickly becomes obsessed with Jeremy, and Jeremy urges John to escape the reception with him.

Meanwhile, John attempts to court Claire, the maid of honor, but is interrupted by her hotheaded boyfriend, Sack Lodge (Bradley Cooper), who is unfaithful and disrespectful behind her back. When Gloria invites Jeremy and John to an extended weekend party at their family compound, John overrules Jeremy to accept and get closer to Claire.

John and Jeremy become acquainted with the Clearys at their home: the Secretary's wife (Jane Seymour) sexually harasses John; Gloria's brother Todd (Keir O'Donnell) tries to seduce Jeremy during the night; Gloria continues to lavish unwanted sexual attention on Jeremy; and Sack repeatedly injures Jeremy during a game of touch football. At dinner, John spikes Sack's wine with eye-drops to make him sick and get more time to connect with Claire.

John and Claire continue to bond the next day on a sailing trip. The suspicious Sack takes the men on a hunting trip, where Jeremy is shot in the buttocks. While he recovers, John and Claire go on a bike ride to a secluded beach. Claire finally admits she isn't sure how she feels about Sack and ends up kissing John passionately. Meanwhile, Gloria tends to Jeremy's wounds and reveals to him that she is not as innocent or inexperienced as she initially let on. Jeremy realizes that he himself has been played and that he may be in love with Gloria.

Ready to confess everything to Claire to convince her not to marry Sack, John is interrupted by Jeremy being chased out of the house: Sack has investigated and revealed John and Jeremy's identities to the family. Betrayed, Claire turns away from John and the Secretary tells them to leave.

Over the following months, John attempts to reach Claire but she refuses to see him. John attempts to crash Claire and Sack's engagement party but is caught and beaten by Sack. Confronting Jeremy about abandoning him, he learns that Jeremy has secretly continued his relationship with Gloria. Betrayed, John spirals into depression, crashing weddings alone and becoming nihilistic and suicidal. Meanwhile, as Claire and Sack plan their wedding, Claire's doubts grow. Jeremy proposes to Gloria and tries to ask John to be his best man, but a depressed John refuses.

John visits Jeremy's former wedding crashing mentor, Chazz Reinhold (an uncredited Will Ferrell), who convinces him to crash a funeral. While there, he reconsiders his belief in love and marriage and rushes to Jeremy's wedding. John joins the wedding mid-ceremony to Jeremy's delight, but Claire is upset by his appearance, prompting John to profess his love to her and his regret for his past behavior in front of the congregation. Sack interrupts, but Claire finally tells him that she can't marry him. Sack tries to attack John, but Jeremy intervenes to knock him out, and John and Claire kiss.

After the wedding, the two couples drive away from the ceremony together, discussing crashing another wedding together.

Cast

Arizona Senator and 2008 Republican presidential nominee John McCain and Democratic strategist and CNN contributor James Carville both have a brief cameo appearance in the film towards the beginning, where both are seen congratulating the secretary and his wife on their daughter's wedding.

Production

Andrew Panay, co-producer of Wedding Crashers, had the idea for the film based on his own experience as a wedding crasher in his youth.[5] Panay then consulted the screenwriting team of Steve Faber and Bob Fisher to come up with a story based on this premise. The screenwriters had doubts it could be sustained into a feature-length film, so they decided to add female love interests born from a political family, inspired by their dream of marrying a girl from the Kennedy family when they were youngsters.[5] It was also Panay's desire "to explore male friendship through this crazy idea of crashing weddings."[5]

Dobkin insisted on three and a half weeks of rehearsals before filming began, based on his background working in theater.[5]

Filming

Principal photography began on March 22, 2004, in Washington, D.C.[6] The movie had a 52-day shooting schedule.[7]

The main Cleary wedding reception scene was filmed at the Inn at Perry Cabin in Saint Michaels, Maryland.[7][better source needed]

Release

Critical response

The review-aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a score of 76% based on 185 reviews, and a weighted average of 6.7 out of 10. The website's critical consensus states, "Wedding Crashers is both raunchy and sweet, and features top-notch comic performances from Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson."[8] At Metacritic, the film has a score of 64 out of 100 based on 39 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".[9] Audiences surveyed by CinemaScore gave the film a grade A-.[10]

Carina Chocano of the Los Angeles Times wrote a favorable review, and in particular praised Vaughan's performance "Jeremy is the soul of the movie. There's something about Vaughn — the deadpan eyes; the sublimated, misdirected intelligence — that recalls Bill Murray in his "Caddyshack" years." Chocano is critical of Will Ferrell's "hyper-active bonehead routine" and calls the interlude awful. Despite some flaws, she calls the film "unapologetically fun" and says "it's really just a love story about a couple of buddies who live happily ever after. And it couldn't have happened to a nicer, more charming couple". [11] Manohla Dargis of the New York Times wrote "It's crude, yes, but also funny; too bad these lost boys can't stay lost. Like clockwork, the film soon mutates from a guy-oriented sex comedy into a wish-fulfillment chick flick".[12] Brian Lowry of Variety describes the film as "fairly amusing, fitfully over the top and [...] occasionally a touch homophobic". He praises McAdams as she manages to "fill in narrative gaps and actually creates a real character", says Vaughan's dialog has most of the comedic highlights, and is disappointed that Walken is underused. Lowry concludes "While neither a full-throated R-rated romp a la "There's Something About Mary" nor a fully realized romantic comedy, "Wedding Crashers" contains enough appealing elements of both to catch the bouquet in what's been a relatively humor-deprived summer.[13]

Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film two stars out of four; although he wrote that "there are individual moments that are very funny" he added that the director, David Dobkin, "has too much else on his mind".[14] British Movie magazine Empire awarded it three out of five stars and were complimentary to Vaughn and Wilson, saying "Sharing an easy chemistry and free of the usual joker/straight-guy dynamic, Wilson and Vaughn quip, riff and banter to hilarious effect. And both get their fair share of money moments, the latter’s muggings are particularly hysterical in a raunchy dinner-party sequence. The laidback stars are funny and sweet, but they’re let down by a patchy script which squanders some potentially priceless set-ups."[15] Kimberley Jones of The Austin Chronicle writes that the film "will no doubt make buckets of money, but it’ll do so without half the wit, compassion, or inspired madness of Mary". Jones complains about the plot "it’s mostly cookie-cutter stuff" and the characterization of sexuality and race "gays and blacks are represented, respectively, by a squirrelly psychotic and a Jamaican house servant". Jones concludes "A stiff drink or maybe some pharmaceutical assistance might have made me overlook the film's sour tone, or the unremarkableness of its direction."[16]

In a 2018 review Scott Meslow of GQ reexamined the film, writing "the gender and sexual dynamics that have aged rather poorly, Wedding Crashers feels awfully uneven today." He notices a date-rape joke in the opening minutes, complains about the lack of developed female characters, objects to the sassy racist grandma trope, calls the predatory gay man trope "inexcusably unfunny", notes how the film trivializes rape, and calls Will Ferrell's cameo lazy. Meslow concedes "For all its faults, it does have an extremely strong pair of leads" but ultimately concludes that the film does not hold up.[17]

Box office

The film was released in North America on July 15, 2005, and became an immediate hit, grossing $33,900,720 in its first weekend,[18] hitting #2 in the box office, behind Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. Fairly well received by critics, the film eventually grossed over $209,255,921 domestically, narrowly outgrossing Charlie. Considering its modest budget ($40 million) and competition with heavily advertised blockbusters during the summer season, the studio did not expect the movie's level of success. It grossed $75,920,820 in other territories, totaling $285,176,741 worldwide.[2]

Accolades

On April 24, 2006, Wedding Crashers topped the nominations for the year's MTV Movie Awards with five including Best Movie. It won Best Movie, On-Screen Team (Vaughn and Wilson), and Breakthrough Performance (Isla Fisher). The financial success of the film has been credited along with The 40-Year-Old Virgin for reviving the popularity of adult-aimed R-rated comedies.[4]

Bradley Cooper was mentioned in the August 2006 issue of GQ as one of "The Top Twelve Movie Dicks".[19]

Home media

The DVD was released in the United States on January 3, 2006, and a Blu-ray was released on December 30, 2008. It is available in an unrated version ("Uncorked Edition") and in an R-rated version (the Blu-ray has both versions on one disc). It features eight new minutes integrated into the film and DVD-ROM bonuses. Also included are two audio commentaries (one by the stars, one by the director), four deleted scenes, two featurettes, a "Rules of Wedding Crashing" text gallery, trailers, Budweiser Wedding Crashers commercials, a track listing for the official soundtrack on 20th Century Fox Records, a music video by The Sights, and a jump-to-a-song sample feature.[20]

Television version

The creators of the film made a reality TV version, called The Real Wedding Crashers and shown on NBC in April and May 2007. NBC only showed four episodes.[21]

Discussed sequel

In a 2014 post on the website Quora, Wedding Crashers director David Dobkin said that he, Vaughn and Wilson once came up with an idea for a sequel in which John and Jeremy find themselves competing with a superior wedding crasher, played by Daniel Craig; but that this idea never went beyond the discussion phase.[22]

The 2013 film The Internship, which also starred Vaughn and Wilson, was described by critic A.A. Dowd as an unofficial sequel to Wedding Crashers.[23]

In November 2016, Fisher was a guest on The Today Show and while talking about Nocturnal Animals, she revealed from her Wedding Crashers co-star Vaughn had said that there were talks about a sequel.[24]

References

  1. ^ "Wedding Crashers (15)". British Board of Film Classification. June 6, 2005. Retrieved October 24, 2016.
  2. ^ a b c "Wedding Crashers". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved July 21, 2009.
  3. ^ "Release Dates for Wedding Crashers". IMDb. Retrieved July 21, 2009.
  4. ^ a b Farber, Stephen (July 10, 2005). "The Return of the R-Rated Comedy". The New York Times.
  5. ^ a b c d Grierson, Tim. "The Oral History of Wedding Crashers". MEL Magazine. Retrieved December 30, 2018.
  6. ^ https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/style/2004/05/16/a-filmmakers-dc-close-up/73d498fb-5129-48e9-b907-134e4f2b84f0/
  7. ^ a b "Production Notes". New Line Cinema. 2005. Retrieved September 13, 2013 – via Cinemareview.com.
  8. ^ "Wedding Crashers Reviews". Rotten Tomatoes. Retrieved December 6, 2018.
  9. ^ "Wedding Crashers Reviews". Metacritic. Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  10. ^ WEDDING CRASHERS (2005) A- CinemaScore
  11. ^ "Wedding Crashers Review". Los Angeles Times. July 15, 2005. Archived from the original on July 18, 2009. Retrieved July 21, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  12. ^ Dargis, Manohla (July 15, 2005). "Wedding Crashers Movie Review". New York Times. Retrieved July 21, 2009.
  13. ^ Brian Lowry (July 7, 2005). "Wedding Crashers". Variety magazine.
  14. ^ Ebert, Roger (July 14, 2005). "Wedding Crashers Review". Retrieved September 4, 2016.
  15. ^ "Review". Empire Magazine. Retrieved September 13, 2013.
  16. ^ https://www.austinchronicle.com/events/film/2005-07-15/278995/
  17. ^ Meslow, Scott (January 17, 2018). "Does Wedding Crashers Hold Up?". GQ. Retrieved June 7, 2018.
  18. ^ "Wedding Crashers (2005) - Weekend Box Office Results". Box Office Mojo. Retrieved January 6, 2019.
  19. ^ "Karate Kid Bully Tops 'Movie Dicks' Poll". Contactmusic.com. August 22, 2006. Retrieved January 6, 2019.
  20. ^ "Wedding Crashers - Uncorked DVD details". IMDb. Retrieved July 21, 2009.
  21. ^ "The Real Wedding Crashers NBC TV Show: Funny Marriage Prank Series and Jokes". NBC Official Site. Archived from the original on June 22, 2009. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  22. ^ David Dobkin (October 10, 2014). "Why was there no sequel to Wedding Crashers?". Quora.
  23. ^ Dowd, A.A. (June 6, 2013). "The Internship (review)". The A.V. Club.
  24. ^ Isla Fisher on ‘Nocturnal Animals,’ lookalike Amy Adams, ‘Wedding Crashers 2’. The Today Show. November 17, 2016. Event occurs at 3:15.
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