How do you make an intentionally cringe-worthy if not remotely funny rom-com even more humorless? By doubling down on its theme, “coincidence” and fate intervening, and basically repeating the whole dull thing as “if things had turned out differently.”
Sam Claflin (“Me Before You,” “Peaky Blinders”) ) is the hapless Hugh Grant wannabe in this Endless Wedding that You Wish would add a Funeral. Jack’s a fellow who keeps getting interrupted by boorish Brits every time he’s about to have a moment with the fetching American “war reporter.”
As she’s played by the Her Hopelessly Hotness Olivia Munn, we get his frustration.
It’s the second time they meet that’s the real rub. Jack’s sister (Eleanor Tomlinson) is about to marry a handsome Italian in an Italian villa — gardens, catered, arriving in a vintage Rolls Royce, the works. But every time Jack wants to make time with Dina the Yank, dopey Sidney in the kilt (Tim Key) intrudes, over-eager actor and Maid of Honor Bryan (Joel Fry) has as crisis or his sister Hayley yanks him away.
Because Jack’s favorite cock-blocker, ex-college roomie and cokehead Marc (Jack Farthing) shows up, blitzed and hellbent on pulling “The Graduate” rescue with the unwilling bride.
Hayley’s suggestion that Jack drug Marc with her sleeping drops is just the sort of thing idiot screenwriters dream up to show how little of the actual world they understand.
Accidents, coincidences and hilarity ensues. And then, writer-director Dean Craig (see the paragraph above) does it all over AGAIN.
This is an adaptation of a French rom-com, “Plan de table,” which is no excuse.
In all fairness, the original cringe-worthy bits of “blocking” do what they’re intended to — make you cringe and snap at the screen. Provided, of course, that you’re rooting for doormat Jack to score points with inutterably gorgeous and probably more interesting Dina.
It’s the do-over, in that cloying narration’s one “coincidence” changes everything — considering various mathematical possibilities about that (switched) drugged drink — that drags the picture underwater.
The only soul swimming to the surface and surviving? That would be hilarious Irish actress Aisling Bea (TV’s “Gap Year”), who gets a chuckle every time she delivers a filthy sweet nothing in that biting brogue.
And Freida Pinto, the other “big name” in the cast, doesn’t humiliate herself as Jack’s ex, bickering all the way through the wedding and reception luncheon with her insecure “soon to be fiancé,” Chaz (Allan Mustafa).
“Love Wedding Repeat” teeters within reach of tolerable, although this cast — Claflin is NOT a funny man, no one EVER gives Munn anything funny to do — and these situations never gave the picture a chance.
It’s cringe-worthy, and then some.
MPAA Rating: TV-MA, drug abuse, sexuality, a little violence, profanity
Cast: Sam Claflin, Olivia Munn, Freida Pinto,
Credits: Written and directed by Dean Craig. A Netflix original.
Running time: 1:40
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