DESTINATION WEDDING (2018)

Genre: Romance/Comedy
Director: Victor Levin
Cast: Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder
Runtime: 1 hr 27 mins
Rating: M18 (Sexual Scene and Some Coarse Language)
Released By: Shaw Organisation
Official Website: 

Opening Day: 20 September 2018

Synopsis: DESTINATION WEDDING reunites two of Hollywood’s most adored stars, Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder, as the socially awkward Frank and Lindsay. When they meet on their way to a destination wedding, they soon discover they have a lot in common: they both hate the bride, the groom, the wedding, themselves, and most especially each other. As the weekend's events continually force them together - and their cheerlessness immediately isolates them from the other guests - Frank and Lindsay find that if you verbally spar with someone long enough, anything can happen. When debate gives way to desire, they must decide which is stronger: their hearts or their common sense.

Movie Review:

If ‘Destination Wedding’ were your typical rom-com, you’d probably have seen this pairing of Gen-X icons Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder happen much sooner, so consider this as fair warning for those expecting a feel-good movie. In fact, this second feature from writer-director Victor Levin is rather resolutely determined to dismantle the apparatus of the conventional Hollywood romance, casting Reeves and Ryder as a pair of self-loathing misanthropes who meet en route to a destination wedding and find unlikely company in each other throughout the entire weekend. Their conversations consist not of gentle ribbings but brutal insults mind you, but if you’re willing to sit through their sometimes overpowering negativity, you might find yourself pleasantly surprised by just how much you’ll still be rooting for them.

You’d be forgiven for thinking otherwise at the start; after all, we are introduced to Reeves’ character Frank sitting on the edge of his bed clearing his throat loudly and obnoxiously while watching cable news, and Ryder’s character Lindsay exhaling through her mouth at a dying table plant while whispering to it not to die while she’s away. They are neurotic all right, and their meet-not-cute happens at an airport while they are both waiting for a chartered flight to San Luis Obispo: he cuts in front of her at the gate, they end up spending the next five hours sitting next to each other at the back of a tiny plane, bickering at and recoiling from each other all the way through. In the midst of their squabbling, they realise that they are both headed to the same wedding in Paso Robles.

Turns out that Frank’s half-brother is the one getting married, and Lindsay happens to be the girl that he broke off an engagement from six years earlier. Whereas Frank is attending because his mother had insisted, Lindsay had accepted the invite mostly out of obligation as well as the need for closure. To further illustrate how off-kilter their matchup is, not only does he fail to demonstrate any sort of empathy towards Lindsay’s emotional state, Frank wonders out loud why she hasn’t yet had closure after so long, even going to the extent of questioning her point blank if what she feels for him is indeed love. Later on that evening, they will find themselves in adjoining rooms at the local hotel and assigned seats next to each other at the rehearsal dinner, so before the day is over, it will dawn on them that they are the wedding misfits who have been thrown together because they do not fit with anyone else.

From Friday’s ‘Fuckin’ Rehearsal Dinner’ to Saturday morning’s ‘A Bunch of Stupid Shit You Would Never Do Otherwise Do Activities’ to Saturday evening’s ‘Just What the World Needs: Another Goddamn Sunset Wedding’, Frank and Lindsay will muddle their way through the string of events, while keeping up their relentless banter characterised by existential dread, disgust with humanity and the pointlessness of the universe. Levin has fashioned his film essentially as a two-hander, such that Frank and Lindsay are the only talking parts throughout the entire duration, and their conversations are captured in long cuts where the camera pretty much stays in the same position. That doesn’t mean all they do between themselves is talk; indeed, in what is certainly one of the more memorable scenes, Frank and Lindsay end up awkwardly deciding to have sex with each other in the wild after escaping from a mountain lion and tumbling down a hill.

Notwithstanding, the focus of the movie is undoubtedly their verbal barbs and observational insults. You can certainly criticise Levin’s dialogue for being overwritten: every line and retort is intended as a punch line, which certainly makes it less-than-natural to say the very least. Yet there is no denying that the rapid-fire back-and-forth between Frank and Lindsay is engaging and even amusing in a screwball comedy kind of way, much of which is also credit to Reeves’ and Ryder’s delivery and their effortless chemistry with each other. Oh yes, usually relegated to stoic roles like Neo and John Wick, Reeves clearly relishes the opportunity to take on such a verbose role, and Ryder has perfected the art of being annoying and sympathetic at the same time. They are perfectly matched all right, and those who have grown up with these stars will quite surely enjoy being in their company.

So yes, as much as ‘Destination Wedding’ isn’t your typical rom-com, it still has plenty of charm to spare, as long as you’re in the right mood and frame of mind. This is an anti-romance if you will, filled with snappy, caustic lines from two misanthropic characters you will need some time to warm up to. Yet as we’ve mentioned, Reeves and Ryder are very, very watchable together, and make the unapologetically unnatural and overly wordy dialogue a lot more palatable. They still give off the ‘aw-shucks’ feeling by the time their characters turn their initial dislike for each other into some sort of recognition of the desire for connection. It might not be what you had in mind, but in the end, this is one destination that will surprise you with where it takes you and how it leaves you.

Movie Rating:

(It's packed with verbal barbs and observational insults, but Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder make this anti-romance between two misanthropic characters who find connection in each other an amusing screwball comedy and a surprisingly endearing diversion)

Review by Gabriel Chong