Great Movie: Wedding Crashers (2005)

John Beckwith (Wilson) and Jeremy Grey (Vaughn) are divorce mediators in their mid-30′s with a particularly interesting hobby: Every year, they crash weddings to meet women for one-night stands. At the end of another successful season, Jeremy convinces John to go for one more: the wedding of the daughter of William Cleary, the Secretary of the Treasury’s (Christopher Walken). There, Jeremy and John quickly set their sights on the bridesmaid, Gloria and Claire Cleary (Isla Fischer, Rachel McAdams). Hilarity and romance ensue.

As said earlier, this movie is beautifully crafted. Everything that comes on the screen was meticulously put there. This all begins with the cast from top to bottom, from the leads to the mean grandmother or the butler. The characters are so stereotypical, yet everyone that showed up on screen was special in his or her own way.

• Vince Vaughn and Owen Wilson: They define the notion of greater than the sum of two parts: They are both good actors but together, those guys were hilarious! Plus they don’t really have to play the parts of being older bachelors because they freaking are! Vince Vaughn is a truly gifted comedian with great sense of timing and crisp line deliveries. Owen Wilson is solid but never did it for me before, but he had great chemistry with Vaughn and delivered some homerun lines. Those two completed each other real well. You know the duo was going to be funny and wild and the movie would revolve around them so the real surprise wasn’t them…
• Rachel McAdams: Although she appeared in only a fraction of the scenes, she stole the show. If you read my movie reviews, you know I tend to harp on mediocre acting on unoriginal characters and maybe it is the screenplay or the writer’s fault. I realize one of the toughest thing to do well is to sell a stereotypical character riddled with bad lines. However, like I said before, good actors find a way to make it ring true and real. Her character, Claire Cleary, was a textbook example of how to turn a bland underwritten daddy’s little girl character with cheesy lines into a special character that felt real and heartfelt. That’s talent! You never really learn much about her character explicitly, yet you know what kind of person she is in a very short time. The great strength of Rachel McAdams is that she makes her characters ring sincerely true, and she can convey her characters background and persona without the viewer ever being told.
• Isla Fischer: She went way over-the-top with her character, Gloria, and it worked wonderfully. She was truly hilarious and creepy as the clingy psychopath girlfriend. Very good execution although she disappears toward the end.
• Christopher Walken: Walken has such a great aura and is one of the best in the business at delivering lines, and conveying certain types of emotions with minimum effort. He can make you laugh without ever cracking a single smile. Academy Award winner back in 1979! This guy has been around Hollywood for so long and is still going strong. Amazing career…
• Jane Seymour: Are you kidding me? Jane Seymour!! Are you freaking kidding me? Can you believe she was already in her mid-fifties back then??? Ok I shut up…
• Bradley Cooper: Playing ‘Sack’ Lodge, the mean unworthy boyfriend, Cooper is/was such an underrated character’s actor (until the Hangover). Talented actor who really put forth an outstanding job on an horribly shallow part.
• Keir O’Donnell: His interpretation of Todd Cleary was PURE genius. Too bad they didn’t get him a little more screen time because his character was so hilarious. See where I’m getting? Todd could have been a character so forgettable you wouldn’t even notice him but this guy came in and put in an original spin which added to the movie.
• Will Ferrell: Cameo appearance by Ferrell, does it get better than that for a raunchy comedy? I mean I don’t usually enjoy his over-the-top comedy over the length of a full movie (except in Anchorman), but in a cameo, he was great (although unneeded)
• I could go on and on all the way down to the most minimal part. It is so easy to focus on Owen Wilson’s and Vince Vaughn’s characters and dismiss all the supporting cast work when you are not paying attention because when they do a great job, then it feels “normal” but pay attention next time you see the movie and you will see the amount of detail put into each character.

Beyond the cast, the movie thrived on many different aspects. The direction was top-notch as well, leaving a lot of room to the talented cast to add their own marks to each characters and allowing Vaughn and Wilson to work on what they do best: improvisations. Although it is a light summer movie, there is a lot of subtle looks, expressions, layers and runners throughout the film if you are paying attention, which are hallmarks of a finely directed movie. Again, something to pay attention to next time, if you ever watch it again. The cinematography was superb with vibrant colors, sunny sets, and drop-dead gorgeous shots and settings. The musical score and soundtrack fit perfectly with the different moods of the movie.

Finally, the essence of the movie that when you meet that someone special, there is a spark. It’s reassuring to think it’s there, that we won’t just miss each other, and I think we all want to believe in that.

So in all, this is all the little things that come up together to make a great movie and this is why I loved Wedding Crashers! Discuss if you can.