Blind Wedding (Wedding Daze)
U.S.A. 2006

Opening 1 May 2008

Directed by: Michael Ian Black
Writing credits: Michael Ian Black
Principal actors: Jason Biggs, Audra Blaser, Isla Fisher, Joanna Gleeson, Mark Consuelos

Vanessa drops dead at the sight of her boyfriend Anderson (Jason Biggs) dressed in a skimpy cupid costume. And all he wanted was to create a romantic setting suitable for proposing marriage. A year later, his friend Ted has had enough of boring Anderson’s long-term mourning and dares him to find a new girlfriend. Anderson immediately proposes to the waitress in their local diner. She has issues of her own, one being her boyfriend William, who is waiting for an answer to his own proposal. She accepts Anderso,n and they spend the rest of the film getting acquainted, philosophizing about marriage between strangers, and shocking various friends and parents. The film ends predictably with a wedding, but not before there is some slapstick turbulence which involves games of charades, one prison escape, seven arrests, gun shots, a ghost from the past and, repeatedly, the word “wow.” 

At first I thought, “This isn’t as bad as I thought it was going to be.” But it was. Perhaps more knowledge about director-writer Michael Ian Black would at least explain where he is coming from – namely from television and comedy where he is an actor and writer. He is also Jewish (real name: Schwartz) which might explain the Jewish joke about the Yiddish-speaking stuffed animal. Haven’t we already seen such clichés as: having an epiphany at the altar before saying “I do,” overpowering a policeman and handcuffing him in his own jail, or travelling in a life-threatening junk heap of a car? Black’s screenplay for Run Fat Boy Run was similar but seemed to have a purpose, whereas this film’s right to exist might lie solely with the 21-pop-song soundtrack, useful while doing the ironing. The uncertain fate of Wedding Daze is reflected in its date of origin: 2006, and its alternative titles: The Next Girl I See and The Pleasure of Your Company. I hope the young actors will soon step up to more fulfilling roles, especially the delightful young woman who appeared as a salesgirl during the first two minutes of the film, never to reappear again. (Becky Tan)