Review of Muriel's Wedding (1994) by Edith N — 13 Apr 2008

Of course, a spit is a very small, narrow peninsula. Back up near Sequim, Washington, there's the Dungeness Spit. Presumably, in wherever-it-is, Australia, there is a spit called Porpoise Spit. The one in Sequim shares a name with a crab. However, "Porpoise Spit" is funnier.

It is also the home of the Heslop family, and in particular Muriel (Toni Collette). She has failed at everything she's ever tried, and she hasn't tried much. Her father, Bill (Bill Hunter, in fact), is a local politician who despises his family and keeps "coincidentally" running into a local makeup saleswoman, Deidre Chambers (Gennie Nevinson), with whom he is absolutely totally not having an affair in any way. He's also completely not taking bribes. At all. And it's silly to suggest that he is. However, he does arrange for Muriel to work under her and for his, you know, actual [i]wife[/i], Betty (Jeanie Drynan), to give her an honest-to-Gods blank check for Muriel to buy cosmetics with. Muriel gets her mother to make the check out to cash and cleans out the family accounts to take a vacation with a bunch of girls whom she thinks are her friends. Long story short, they aren't, but she makes a friend in Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths) and moves to Sidney.

Muriel is fascinated by weddings and stifled by her family. I cannot condone her theft habit; I have serious issues with theft. I do, however, understand the desperation that drove her to it. She's treated like dirt by her father--and dirt she owes everything to. Her mother is a doormat. Her siblings just suck. And the friends she so desperately wants don't actually like her. They just like having someone around to feel superior to. With Muriel, they can. So she becomes Mariel to be someone different. Someone better. A patron of the video store where she works, Brice (Matt Day), asks her out. That makes her better. And then, for reasons that aren't quite clear--almost certainly as yet another way to get out from under her father's thumb--she marries. A complete stranger. David Van Arckle (Daniel Lapaine), a South African swimmer who needs Australian citizenship. And that's going to make everything okay.

I understand the desire. I understand Muriel/Mariel so well that it hurts me. I understand her mother pretty well, too. In my head, her mother walks into the sea. She doesn't, of course, but it's the sort of thing she would do if her family needed it of her. Mariel, to give her the name she chose for herself, just keeps trying not to be her mother but to avoid become her father, either. There are few people she can be that she has direct experience of. Finding Mariel in Muriel is not a pleasant journey.

There's a bit much in the way of ABBA. Bill Hunter was making [i]The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert[/i], at the same time. He must have been [i]drowning[/i] in ABBA by the end of things. I don't know; maybe it's an Australian thing. Maybe it's an Australian filmmaker thing. This isn't Baz Luhrmann, though my brain remembers it as such. It's P. J. Hogan, who also directed [i]My Best Friend's Wedding[/i] and the '03 [i]Peter Pan[/i]. The film has some good imagery, and there's some interesting though not great cinematography. I've loved this movie for years.