Muriel's Wedding (1994)
Written and directed by P.J. Hogan

Part of a loosely-connected trio of movies that form the genre "Australian Comedies of the 90s With a More or Less Gay Sensibility," Muriel's Wedding is not at all what you would be led to believe. It's probably the best film of the three (the others are Strictly Ballroom and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert), but it's barely a comedy, so if you go in expecting My Big Fat Greek Wedding or some shit like that, you'll probably be left rather unsettled.

Yes, Muriel does have a wedding, but it's a sham wedding, and in between you get issues such as family dysfunction, compulsive lying, sexual compulsiveness, body image shame, cancer, and a whole lot of verbal abuse. It's very much not the feel-good hit of the 90s.

For some reason, I recall the film having been hilarious when I saw it in '94, but viewing it again, I was struck by how bleak it all is. Toni Collette plays Muriel, the depressed daughter of a failed politician, stuck in a family characterized by sloth, denial, silent desperation, and overeating. After being jilted by the "popular girls" who she considers her friends, she steals most of her family's money and goes off on holiday, where she runs into Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths), an outcast she knew from high school.

Rhonda's acceptance of Muriel allows her to break out of her small-town imprisonment and move to Sydney to reinvent herself … shortly thereafter, Rhonda gets cancer. At that point the film really becomes Muriel's Friend's Cancer.

Ultimately, Muriel comes to accept herself and lets go of the compulsiveness (her obsession with having a wedding becomes the big one), and all is right in the end. Oh wait, I forgot to mention that her mother kills herself, too.

So, the joyous laughter promised by the DVD cover is actually significantly more bittersweet than you'd expect. The film is so true, unflinching, and well-acted, though, that it doesn't really become maudlin. Unless you were in the mood for a lighthearted comedy, which this time around, I was.

Collette and Griffiths are terrific, along with the rest of the cast. Like Priscilla, this movie has an ABBA obsession, but it's more desperate than fabulous. More meaningful, though not as fun.

Bill Hunter, who plays Muriel's father, was actually in all three of the movies I mentioned, which is surely coincidence, but it lends a cool continuity to these otherwise unrelated films, helping my Xenophobic American mind to roll them all up conveniently into one stereotype, as I do with Blacks, Mexicans, and Aunts.

Review by Suzie Cant