Polish Wedding (1998)

I am really, really confused. Confused and annoyed. Confused, annoyed, and even more confused. Why does Blockbuster have director Theresa Connelly's Polish Wedding in the "comedy" section? To me, sexual antics, trickery, deceit, adultery, and general immoral behavior do not generally denote "humor and poignancy that anyone who has ever felt the love and loyalty of family bonds will understand" (http://www.foxsearchlight.com/polish/movie.html). I don't necessarily have a problem with sexual antics, trickery, deceit, adultery, and general immoral behavior (hehe), but these things combined with a bland and boring script don't exactly scream comedy.

Polish Wedding is about a close-knit, low-income Polish family residing in a bleak Detroit suburb and dealing with some extreme problems, mostly due to the errant Pzoniak women. The matriarch of the family is Jadzia (played by Lena Olin, who could have really added something to this film if the script weren't so meandering and weak). She is having an extramarital affair at work (Jadzia's husband, Bolek, played by Gabriel Byrne, is treated as the unwitting fool in this film). Jadzia's a cleaning woman, so sex on the job involves scrubbing a bathroom floor during foreplay and emptying over a bucket of scuzzy water in a climactic moment. The sole Pzoniak daughter, Hala (Claire Danes looking rather vapidly kittenish, and delivering a much too kittenishly vapid performance for a girl with proven talent), is following in her mother's coy seductress footsteps--she's a high school dropout whom all the neighborhood boys turn to when they need some attention.

Throughout this plodding and depressing film, we witness quite a few things that I doubt are touted acts of the Polish and are puzzling to boot: the women trap men in strained relationships; Jadzia and Hala are needlessly promiscuous; Jadzia inexplicably decides not to leave her husband for her lover because the ties of the family are so strong (but why does she cheat in the first place then?); Hala's mother and brothers fight for her "honor" when the father of her tryst child (Adam Trese as Russell Schuster) is understandably reluctant to have Hala become a permanent fixture in his life, making him out to be the bad guy.

The main irony of Polish Wedding is Hala's nomination as leader of the Procession of the Virgin, a religious honor, while she is far from virginal (she's actually with child). This situation is kind of amusing in a morbid and awkward way, but it isn't enough to make the film interesting. And Hala's happy ending with a dream man she forced to marry her is extremely far-fetched and still not interesting. Uninteresting as well is Bolek's discovery that Jadzia is indeed cheating on him, as he spies his wife and her lover escape into the night. Their reconciliation is just as bland.

This film is irritating and, for the most part, aimless and inane. Even from an arty, grittier perspective, Polish Wedding is by no means a "comedy," not even a dark one. But as another reviewer indicated, maybe I don't grasp the aspects of a Polish family that could be considered humorous. Nah, I don't think that's it. I think this film just doesn't contain any humor, but it does contain a whole lot of angst and fictitious elements presented in an insipid manner.

01/18/02: Yes, yes, I am done. I just had to edit a poorly worded sentence and needed to clean up some other things.

Recommended:
No

Viewing Format: VHS
Suitability For Children: Not suitable for Children of any age