Movie Review: Destination Wedding

Destination Wedding

Director: Victor Levin

Starring: Keanu Reeves, Winona Ryder, Dj Dallenbach

Rating: R

Runtime: 90 Minutes

The market has been flooded with romantic comedies for decades. Some of them are hilarious. Others are plain sad. Now and then some of them hit the sweet spot somewhere between. Destination Wedding is neither of these and thus unique in the genre.

Frank (Keanu Reeves) is a world-class cynic. He doesn’t believe in happiness, and he doesn’t much care for anything or anyone else. Lindsay (Winona Ryder) is also a pessimist, just not quite at Frank’s level. These two have been so jaded by life and by love that they can barely function in the real world. So it is perfect when these two get thrown together en route to the same destination wedding in Paso Robles. They each have their own reason to attend this ceremony, and it is revealed nicely. Despite having a little common ground, they still despise each other’s idiosyncrasies. This pair has experienced love, hate, and indifference in their own ways, but in this one weekend of togetherness, they find something that happens so rarely to people like them: they find a connection through all their callousness.

Frank and Lindsay’s trip is much like mine with this film. I’m weary by the “rom-com” genre. It is so over-saturated and full of tropes that it all feels the same beat for beat. I have love and hate and indifference for so many movies in the genre that it takes something special to make one stand out. I will point to one of my favorites, Richard Linklater’s Before Sunrise. It is more of the romance side of the brand, but it is a five star film that manages to do something different. What it does is give us real dialogue by interesting characters against an interesting backdrop. It relies on the actors to deliver 95% of the lines in the film and use their craft to make it worthwhile. Linklater pens his own scripts, and he is a master with it.

In Destination Wedding, writer Victor Levin (Win a Date with Tad Hamilton!) also directs his words and characters, but he can’t quite conquer the mountain in either job. His directing is flat and unmemorable at best. The writing on display here is outstanding and where the movie shines. It is so good, that it carries the entire ninety-minute runtime. Levin’s other saving grace is the leads that were cast. Reeves and Ryder are no stranger to sharing the screen together, and they fit so well here. They have chemistry and familiarity that films like these thrive on. I’m a sucker for dialogue-heavy movies, but the dialogue has to be good, and it is here. The setting of Paso Robles feels wasted since Levin and cinematographer Peter Lyons Collister didn’t care enough to frame their shots or let any of the beauty shine through.

Destination Wedding is worth your time because it is just so well written. It doesn’t need the fancy photography, but it would have been nice. It has the comedy woven in, but it’s about Frank and Lindsay and only about them. I don’t recall any other character speaking in the film except for them. Levin, Reeves, and Ryder pull this movie off against all the odds. It is simple in it’s directing, music, and secondary characters, but it is rich with words, and that is quite a feat to pull off. Well done, Mr. Levin.