Today’s Around the World with Netflix offering is another cringey-cutesie comedy from Poland, a wish-fulfillment farce about an old industry, a new couple and the “old ways” — which include Poland’s long history of racism.

“Death Before the Wedding” is ungainly and lumbering and rarely funny enough to make Western viewers forget how disastrously dated it is, even if that misogyny, racism and “ginger” phobia here are played for laughs.

Maja (Natalia Iwanska) has just finished her graduate studies in biology (“fungi”) and is ready to tell her parents about her impending nuptials. But mother Regina (Agnieszka Suchora) doesn’t think that’s a great idea. And knowing her dad, Mirek (Tomasz Karolak) gives even the bride-to-be trepidations.

“All my exes still have a stutter because of him,” she complains (in Polish with subtitles, or dubbed).

Dad’s “over my dead body” is a given, a phrase he likes as much as his “You’d all starve within three days if it wasn’t for me.”‘

That one he uses on his wife, his daughter, and the people who work with him — Regina included — at the local branch dairy that’s been the lifeblood of their town for a century.

But the corporate CEO (Antoni Pawlicki) in far off Warsaw has been downsizing operations. He overlooked this one dairy. And yachting vacation or not, he’s got to go TCB to impress his trophy wife (Paulina Galazka) with how he’s a “take charge” guy. They throw their kids in the back of the Bentley and trek to the boondocks to deliver the bad news.

The “Death” is that of the dairy’s drunken manager, who falls into a milk vat. Nothing or almost nothing is made of this, and none of that “nothing” is funny.

The only thing that convinces the CEO to not close the place on the spot is the promise that his wife can plan “the wedding” that Mirek growls about never allowing. Without telling the bride and groom. No, Friday won’t work.

“Friday weddings, lifetime of dreading.”

Mirek’s worst fear, that his daughter is marrying “a ginger” (redhead) is flipped when Milosz (Gamou Fall) the groom turns out to be Afro-French-Polish.

Mirek’s plans to take over as manager of the plant run up against Regina and the women who work there who figure a woman would do a better job.

“You should just leave the men’s business to the men.”

Mirek will need input from college educated Milosz if they’re to figure out a way to “save” the dairy. Regina and her pals could use some help from Maja.

The town cop will try to dig up dirt on the CEO, and the priest is there for the funeral and the wedding.

And there’s barely a laugh in any of this. The idea was to mock Polish provincialism, how “the old ways” still dominate the thinking of those no living in big cities.

The Black guy must play “basketball,” so let’s see if we can figure out the game so he’ll fit in. The yokels take Milosz hunting, playing into his fears and prejudices.

Having seen several Polish comedies on Netflix and a few pre-Netflix, there’s no easy generalization that fits the genre. The darkest ones translate and travel the easiest. The broad and low farces are just corny and show the country as still dealing with a comic sophistication gap, and that goes for the acting as well, which is typically broad and Adam Sandler movie hammy.

“Death Before the Wedding” could have made comic hay with the corpse, could have found more modern “types” to send up, and could have left the whole wedding out of it, thanks to how little attention is paid to the nuptials. And the ways prejudice, provincialism and sexism stand in the way of true love are too trite and tired to summon a giggle.

Rating: TV-14

Cast: Agnieszka Suchora, Tomasz Karolak,
Gamou Fall, Natalia Iwanska, Paulina Galazka and Antoni Pawlicki

Credits: Directed by Tomasz Konecki and Iwona Ogonowska-Konecka, scripted by Hanna Wesierska and Karolina Szymczyk-Majchrzak. A Netflix release.

Running time: 1:41