Helena from the Wedding

(special thanks to Film Movement for providing me with a screener!)

According to many movies there's nothing worse than being upper-middle class, white and trapped in a loving marriage.That very situation was explored recently in Hall Pass, a decent, if forgettable, movie. It's also explored in an even more forgettable way in Helena From the Wedding, the latest offering from Film Movement.

The movie centers around one of those couples who live in that very special kind of hell where they're happy with their lives. Oh, how my heart bleeds for them. We follow them through a weekend at a "cabin" in the mountains (one of those sorts of "cabins" bought by the very wealthy that you know is rustic cause it's built from genuine Wood (tm)!). While there they have a few friends join them, including the titular Helena. Our main character has a crush on her, but doesn't bother to make more than a token effort at following through on it.

During the course of this weekend we learn that, shockingly, not all is happiness and roses for their friends. One of them is getting divorced. One of the other couples fights constantly. Everyone smokes weed and snorts coke and winges on about how horrible their lives are until you want to reach through the screen and smack all of them. None of this is even remotely interesting.

I'm not sure what the point of this movie is. The characters are dull, the setup is boring and the dialogue is flat. These people are whinny and insufferable and I wouldn't want to spend another minute, much less a whole weekend, with any of them. I have no idea what the filmmakers were trying to accomplish with this movie, but unless it was putting me into a sort of torpor, they failed.

This is the kind of film I would have expected to see back in the 1980's. You know, one of those The Big Chill kind of films. It might have been daring and original then, but now it's just boring and flat. This movie is really just not worth bothering with.

This movie is bad: bad writing, bad acting, and especially, bad direction. It's a shame, because, with the exception of the lead actor(no charisma, no looks, no actor's instinct, no interest), I believe the other actors could have made a much better film if given a better script and/or a much better director. As I watched, I thought, these actors could have made a better movie if the director had given them broad story sketches and allowed them to improvise dialogue and action. What I saw was unnatural dialogue, action, and re-action. This movie stinks.
My experience with Film Movement is that their films are hit and miss. Many of them are wonderful, others, such as "Helena From The Wedding" are real stinkers. The idea of the movie is good, but the execution is a waste of talent and film. I would have given it 1.5 stars, so my two stars are generous.

A newly married couple hosts New Year's Eve party in their upstate New York country house, with two more married couples, a single 'getting separated' friend and a young Helena.

Over the course of their short holiday the marriages, relationships, career aspirations and 'turning 40' fears are laid bare to the surface by the careful and witty direction and delicate performances from all the cast.

As the characters reveal their tensions and anxiety, they also get into some hilarious conversations and mis-en-scenes that will make you giggle.

Few hours put to a test their relationships, particularly the one seemingly most perfect of the host couple, Alex (Lee Tergesen) and Alice (Melanie Lynskey), and expose everyone's weaknesses in a tender and humorous way.

This is a great bittersweet portrait of human vulnerability and relationships, delivered with Robert Altman-esque honesty and irony.