“Second Hand Wedding” (2008)

I have to admit that I held off seeing this New Zealand box office success story. I thought the world had already experienced far too many nuptially themed motion pictures.  After “The Wedding Banquet”, “Four Weddings and a Funeral”, “Muriel’s Wedding”, “My Best Friend’s Wedding”, “The Best Man’s Wedding”, “The Wedding Singer”, “The Wedding Planner” and “Wedding Crashers” did we really need an indigenous film called “Second Hand Wedding”?  There was a danger that it would be too true to its title and play like a second hand version of these popular imports.  It surely couldn’t be any worse than the “Father of the Bride” movies, but expectations were not that high.

After all this trepidation I was pleasantly surprised.  “Second Hand Wedding” is one of the most sweetly unpretentious presentations of middle class New Zealand life ever put on screen.  It’s not above quoting from a very famous 1980s classic in its opening frames, showing a yellow mini speeding along suburban streets.  This is very much a family in-joke for the director of “Second Hand Wedding” is Paul Murphy, son of Geoff Murphy, the director of “Goodbye Pork Pie”, the movie which put yellow minis on the cinematic map in this country.

The similarities to other films, wedding themed or otherwise, thankfully stop there.  The mini’s occupants are rushing to a garage sale.  The chief bargain hunter is Jill Rose, played by “Shortland St” veteran Geraldine Brophy.  Jill is a garage sale junkie, arising at the crack of dawn on weekends to forage and barter and haggle.  It’s not that she’s necessarily short of money.  It’s more that she enjoys the challenge, the thrill of the chase.  Her prime motivation is to find booty that might be put to good use at her daughter’s forthcoming wedding.

There are a couple of problems with this.  For a start, daughter Cheryl isn’t actually engaged.  She’s also heartily sick of her mother’s penny-pinching, potentially embarrassing ways.  When boyfriend Stew does pop the question she keeps the news from Jill, fearful that the ceremony will be turned into a second-rate spectacle of hand-me downs and kitsch.

Plot complications ensue beyond this simple set up but the film is essentially structured as a character study of Jill.  While “Second Hand Wedding” is a comedy and a very funny one at times all its characters ring true on a certain level.  Jill emerges as multi-faceted and credible, in both the work place, as a deputy principal, and in the home environment, as a loving wife and mother.  The garage sale subculture to which she belongs is presented with real affection and even her unrelenting enthusiasm for vintage singing icon John Rowles can be swallowed.

Thematically “Second Hand Wedding” doesn’t have a lot on its mind beyond a kind of sentimental celebration of family.  Stylistically it peaks with a nightmare sequence in which Cheryl imagines Jill’s worst excesses coming to pass, but otherwise it is unremarkable.  It is solidly acted throughout by an ensemble cast, without any particular standouts.

The reason it succeeds so well and deserves its success is that shows us recognisable New Zealanders and recognisable New Zealand situations.  The actors look like everyday human beings: some are even middle-aged, fat and bald.  Whatever the predictability of the plot-lines, this kind of honesty counts for a lot.  When the unsurprising wedding climax arrives the speeches given are not improbably articulate or overly cloying but rather the kind of stumbling, heart felt oratory one tends to hear at actual kiwi weddings.  Even the arrival of a surprise guest singer is not overplayed.

“Second Hand Wedding” is honest, straightforward entertainment.  It is local filmmaking at its mainstream, commercial best.