Movie Name: Destination Wedding
Director: Victor Levin
Producer: Elizabeth Dell, Cassian Elwes and Robert Jones
Actors: Winona Ryder and Keanu Reeves
Release Date: August 31, 2018
Budget: $5 million
Box Office: $1.7 million
Introduction
My wife and I were looking for a movie to watch and we settled on this one. Since there has been a mad craze for Keanu Reeves, I figured what the hell. The description looked like it was a romantic comedy and I said what the heck.
Story
The premise of this movie is very simple. You have Frank (played by Keanu Reeves) and Lindsey (played by Winona Ryder) who are both invited to Frank's brother's wedding. Lindsey knows Frank's brother as he left Lindsey a few years prior. The rest of the movie is how these 2 actors end up falling for each other.
Destination Wedding Trailer
Bottomline
This movie is not very hot on the Rotten Tomatoes scale, coming in at 53% from critics and 60% from movie goers. I would say that I would rate it a little higher than that but not much.
The movie itself cost nothing to make. To be honest, most of the budget was probably to get these two big superstars to be in the movie. Every scene centres around them with little to no actors within the scenes. So basically you get an hour in a half of Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder bickering at each other.
There is this weird chemistry between both of the characters and I think that it kind of works. Keanu Reeves plays a character that is completely different from his real life persona. Frank looks at everything with a negative light. At some points he seems like he is full of wisdom and at times he seems like a tortured soul.
Lindsey has a dark side but she is hopeful. She does think that there is a Mr. right out there but since the break up with Frank's brother, it seems that she sees things in a more negative light as well.
Since most of the movie is based with scenes with only these two as the main attraction, there has to be some chemistry and there definitely is. There are some moments and one liners that I actually really laughed out loud.
For example, there is a point at the beginning of the movie where both the characters are bickering at each other at the airport.
Lindsey (paraphrasing): Yeah, you did. You know you did. And what’s funny is there’s no way you can board first because the only way you could board first is if you have a special need. Do you have a special need?
Frank: Yes, I need to stand over there.
On paper it does not seem like a Laugh Out Loud quote but the way that Keanu Reeves delivered that line without missing a beat was awesome. Unfortunately, although there are a lot of exchanges, there are not a ton of one liners like this.
This is where I can see why the movie was not as successful. Some of the scenes were fine, but some of them felt like they dragged on. Since the scenes have only the two actors in them, you need to have some really strong dialogue in order for it to work. These scenes are hit or miss.
The premise of this movie is not anything new. Two people hate each other and then fall in love has been done many, many times in the past and this movie does not being anything new to the table. Reeves and Ryder do bring their charm to this movie, but since the writing can be lazy at times, it feels like even they cannot save this movie.
I do appreciate seeing Reeves in a non action role and I think he played his character very well. Ryder as well, she brought her quirky personality to the movie, but again it can only do so much. It is a movie that tries but falls short in my opinion. I would not have paid money for this movie. However, on Prime Video is where it belongs. If you want a light romantic comedy where you do not expect too much, this could be the movie for you.
This is too bad that the movie fell short as I really wanted to enjoy it more than I did.
Rating: 3.5 on 5
What did you think?
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