20s Movie Review - Love Wedding Repeat

Director: Dean Craig
Genre: Comedy/ Romance
Runtime: 100 minutes
Year: 2020
Starring: Sam Claflin, Olivia Munn, Freida Pinto, Joel Fry, Eleanor Tomlinson, Jack Farthing, Tim Key, Allan Mustafa, Aisling Bea

Description: While trying to make his sister’s (Eleanor Tomlinson) wedding day go smoothly, Jack (Sam Claflin) finds himself juggling an angry ex-girlfriend (Freida Pinto), an uninvited guest (Jack Farthing) with a secret, a misplaced sleep sedative, and the girl who got away (Olivia Munn) in alternate versions of the same day.

I WATCHED THIS MOVIE FOR MY 2023 MOVIE CHALLENGE.
WEEK 10: A BRITISH COMEDY
 
Review: Chance can be an asshole. That’s what the voice-over states. In “Love Wedding Repeat”, everything revolves around chance and the capricious twist of fate. Table arrangements at a wedding turn out to be vital. Only one arrangement has a positive outcome for all the guest, but which one? Fortunately, after a big mistake, the characters just get to try again.

The concept sounds like a lot of fun, but “Love Wedding Repeat” makes almost no use of the concept of cyclical time. Director Dean Craig stupidly chops his romcom about parallel universes into two parts: in the first part of the film, the wedding goes disastrously, in the second part, everything goes completely according to plan.  

Unfortunately, there is a very big drawback to this setup. Jack, the main character, is completely unaware that alternate realities exist. And because he lacks this knowledge, he will therefore not try to influence the course of his own future (or that of others). A missed opportunity, because the self-repeating caus-and-effect gam is precisely what makes a “time loop” movie, like for example “Groundhog Day” or “Edge of Tomorrow”, so entertaining.

A whole battalion of idiotic characters are assembled for the wedding ceremony. Jealous exes, a cocaine head, a sleepy maid of honor, and a chatty man in a kilt who is very itchy. They are meant to make you laugh, but they don’t manage. “Love Wedding Repeat” is rarely truly funny, yet many of the situations are very uncomfortable to watch.

They could have done so many great things with this premise, yet they totally missed the mark. Shame, because with talented performers like Sam Claflin and Freida Pinto, it could have been a lot better.

Rating: 2/ 5