Review "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding"

There is nothing more universal than family conflict. Every family has tension between it's members, and this tension often climaxes at events like weddings and funerals. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding explores the boiling over of tensions that happens at the turn if the 20th century as an aristocratic and emotionally repressed English family hosts a country wedding for their daughter while trying to keep their composure.
The film begins on the morning of the wedding day with the bride, Dolly, puking in the bathroom. Even as her bridesmaids gather downstairs, dolly, played by Felicity Jones, cannot bring herself to recover from her hangover and start getting ready. One by one, there is a parade of family members arriving to the house. A picture is slowly painted of the contrasting personalities that will be mustering forced smiles all day long. We meet the bridesmaids, Dolly's savvy and cosmopolitan cousin and her awkward and oblivious younger sister. Dolly's mother, played by Elizabeth McGovern, arrives in a grand fashion, the perfect picture of English uptight elegance. Her polite facade melts when she sees Joseph, played by Luke Treadway, Dolly's old flame from last summer. After that we are introduced to the aunt and uncle who are well aware of the misery that awaits them, the curmudgeonly grandfather, and the sour but sassy grandmother. As the house fills up and small squabbles begin to erupt, the tension builds as Dolly still has not come down for her wedding and the groom is missing the wedding ring. Even in this refined English country side, bringing family members together guarantees chaos.
After the family is established, the narrative proceeds with episodes of flashbacks focused on Dolly and Joseph's fling last summer. Their seasonal romance abruptly ended when Joseph left on an expedition to Greece, followed by Dolly's quick engagement to another fellow. Dolly's mother correctly fears that Joseph feels there is unfinished business between he and Dolly, and his obvious effect on Dolly heightens the stress of the wedding.
Aside from the predictable family drama that comes with a wedding, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding explores how far people will go to keep up appearances, something the English are all too familiar with. How long will Dolly's mother be able to keep her cool under all the pressure of hosting a wedding, all the while pretending Joseph has not created a disturbance? How long will Joseph and Dolly pretend they don't have feelings for one another? How much longer can all the relatives remain in the same house before things get heated? Director Donald Rice focuses on the inability of the characters to express themselves as well as the interpersonal tensions of things they cannot express to each other. While the film may have had many characters at its disposal to explore these tensions, they assembled an entire tool shed and only asked for a nail and hammer. Once the family is established most of the storytelling focuses on the history of Joseph and Dolly, something that quickly becomes repetitive. The filmmakers are better served exploring the dynamics of the family tension and even the present day tension between Joseph and Dolly, instead of weighing themselves down by explaining the couple's past. The two of the best scenes in the movie are when Dolly's mother and later Joseph break their facade and confess to the entire family their feelings. The tension is finally brought out into the open and the barriers are brought down. Instead, Dolly and Joseph's story, though tastefully illustrated through changes in color tone, adds an unnecessary and indulgently romantic aspect to the movie that doesn't always fit in seamlessly with the present day story.
Perhaps the only even slightly rusty tool in this shed of underused characters is Elizabeth McGovern, who after coming out of obscurity to find success on Downton Abbey has managed to typecast herself as the English matriarch, even if she hasn't quite mastered the accent. Her performance is a well paced one that gives depth to the character, but if practice makes perfect this role would have been easy for her to achieve.
Putting together members of the old world English society, people groomed to be well mannered and cool tempered, is the perfect dry kindling on a hot summer day; it doesn't take long to start a forest fire. Whether or not they can acknowledge the fire is another thing entirely. In the last scene of the movie, Dolly's mother takes a call from a well-wished and proclaims that there was "such cheerful weather" despite the rain. Collected and refined after her outburst, she has resumed her cheerful disposition and pretends the atmosphere, both indoor and outdoors, truly was cheerful.

Directed by Donald Rice; Written by Donald Rice, Mary Henely-Magill; Produced by Teun Hilte; With Elizabeth McGovern, Felicity Jones, Luke Treadway, Mackenzie Crook; Running time 86 min