Yay or Nay?: Love, Wedding, Repeat (Netflix Movie)

This movie I watched a while back, and by that meaning a couple weeks. At the time Netflix rated it at 5 stars, but I’m not sure what the rating would be as of now. Love, Wedding, Repeat seems to be an Italian Film Festival awarded piece of cinema—naturally set in Rome. It’s a bit of an interesting film, and also a bit “artsy” so it may not be in everyone’s taste. I enjoyed it well enough, it wasn’t groundbreaking or anything like that, but it was interesting. 

So I’ll stop keeping you in suspense and get right to it! This is my review of Love, Wedding, Repeat. 

The Story

The premise of the film centers around themes of fate. The entire film itself takes place in (mostly) one night at a wedding. A man named Jack is trying to make sure that his little sister Hayley has the perfect wedding day. In a series of star-crossed coincidences and tragic mishaps— including ex-lover’s coming to ruin the wedding and accidental druggings (yes you heard that right), and even a second chance at a disrupted relationship, the film tracks the story of exactly how many ways eight people can sit at a table—and how that seating can change the fate of an entire night. 

So—in short, this film mainly focuses on the same series of events and covers alternative ways the night could’ve gone, from terrible, to the best. So, this is definitely an artsy film, and if that’s not your type of thing, you will find this extremely boring (or at the very least tedious, as the characters are somewhat funny and decently act well). 

My Thoughts

So I’m not going to say that this is anything with a “wow” factor, to be honest. It’s an alright movie and one that’s enjoyable to watch for the characters, rather than the story. Once you’ve seen the first way the events can go—you’ve seen it all. However, the dynamics of each character and subplot is interesting to watch, and how they could’ve changed in different versions of the same day. The acting is decent, and I found, generally, the cinematography to be very well done. It’s a perfect example of an “okay” film, which focuses on a singular event. What drags it down— to me, at least, is the fact that I think it skips over a lot of character development and backstory, which makes a lot of the characters you’re supposed to like irritating and unlikeable. 

I get it though, you can only do so much in what is essentially a two-hour film. But, at the same time, while the night is progressing you’re supposed to get a sense of what drives these characters—who they are, what they’ve been through, all that jazz. But we only see that on Jack. We don’t see that on Hayley, other than what dialogue shows— which was desperately needed as she comes off as annoying and irritating a lot of the time. Don’t get me wrong, you are given backstories and an interesting myriad of subplots all interconnected to each other. But they’re glossed over when they really shouldn’t have been to get a sense of depth on why this night needs to go well for everyone. Other than the obvious embarrassment, humiliation, a ruined wedding—and surprisingly, accidental murder. 

And this is what ends up happening: towards the second half of the film (showing the best way the night could’ve gone) you end up looking at the clock waiting for the movie to end. It runs itself out. You get bored. Which is also why I think (at least on IMDB) the movie didn’t do so well. I think other than that, this is a good movie. The unfortunate part is that this small thing is really big in context with the story the film tries to tell. 

My Rating 

So, I’d say give it a watch if you’re looking for something to distract you for a couple hours. You’ll either love it or hate it though—I’ve found that’s been the general reaction. I didn’t quite hate it myself— I found it rather lighthearted and interesting, as I’ve said, but that’s not without saying it has some glaring flaws. 

My Rating: ⭐⭐⭐ (3 Stars) 

~Meghan