Last Friday, as per our regular, weekly, movie date, my girlfriend Amanda and I sat down to check out Love Wedding Repeat on Netflix. The trailer looked fun. Set in a gorgeous 17th century Italian villa, full of attractive people with heavy British accents, it was just the kind of sunny escapist fare we thought we needed. It wasn’t Richard Curtis, but it looked like it was trying to be, and that was more than sufficient to fill a hole.
Alas, Netflix’s latest rom-com (a genre they essentially revived with 2018’s Set It Up), which wonders about paths not taken and asks that age-old question of what would life be like if even one thing had worked out differently, manages to single-handedly ruin love. Borrowing liberally from literally everything – Sliding Doors, Groundhog Day, Run Lola Run, Death at a Funeral – the movie doesn’t quite land on anything.
What follows are 27 thoughts that my girlfriend had while watching Love Wedding Repeat. Feel free to read along as you’re watching the movie. It works best as a sort of running commentary. (*Yes, there are spoilers. But trust me when I tell you that it doesn’t really matter.)
1. Is that Judi Dench narrating this? Wow. They managed to get Judi Dench. For Love Wedding Repeat? (Editor’s Note: Nope. It wasn’t. It was Penny Ryder doing her best impression of Judi Dench. Seriously. It’s uncanny.)
2. Ooo. Sam Claflin is in this. Why didn’t you tell me Sam Claflin was in this. He’s so dreamy. I loved him in Me Before You. He is, hands down, one of the best eyebrow actors working today. I also loved him in Love, Rosie. Have you seen Love, Rosie? Oh my God. You have to. His jawline is superb.
3. Urgh. Olivia Munn. Do I believe that she’s a war journalist? Stop it. You’re being too judgy. I may not like her face but that doesn’t mean she couldn’t be a brilliant war journalist if she wanted to. You do you girlfriend.
4.Why aren’t there any commas in the title? Love Wedding Repeat. How am I supposed to read that? LoveWeddingRepeat. In one breath. Should I pause? This is very annoying. Punctuation is important. Especially in love stories.
5. Is the title in reference to music? It feels like the kind of jargon you’d use when making a wedding playlist. I’d totally watch that movie.
6. Jack (Sam Claflin) seems so indifferent to his sister’s wedding. If it’s just you and your sister left in this world, and your one role was to give her away at her wedding, you can sure as hell be more excited about it. Where’s the love and awe?
7. So you find out that your one true love – you know, the one that got away – is at this wedding and you’re not going to go looking for her. You’re just hanging around making small talk. I call bullshit.
8. I’m not sure the brief interaction we see between Jack and Dina at the beginning of the film was enough to make me believe that they’ve got some “tale as old as time” type connection.
9. Everyone is stuttering like Hugh Grant. Only with out any of his boyish charm. I think someone told them that speaking like that is a requirement for all English rom-coms.
10. I’m making a mental note of just how much this wedding must have cost. No one seems to be drinking anything but champagne. There’s a lot of champagne.
11. Who’s this Marc guy? So someone shows up to essentially ruin a wedding and they just let him hang around. That’s stupid. At any wedding, anywhere, let alone one in a fancy-schmancy Italian venue, his ass would be out on the curb.
12. It’s been like a half hour and I don’t care about any of these people.
13, Chaz keeps talking about his penis; over and over again. It wasn’t funny the first time. And it isn’t funny the tenth time either. Why is Freida Pinto even with this guy? Yes, she is the very epitome of insufferable in this movie, but Chaz? Really? I do love her dress and shade of lipstick though.
14. This is so bad. Has this director never seen a romantic comedy before?
15. Did they just shove Marc into a closet? Did the director just rip off Death at a Funeral? Now that I think about it, there’s an accidentally drugged-out character making a fool of himself in that movie too. As well as an ex-lover showing up with salacious secrets. (Editor’s Note: Director Dean Craig wrote both versions of Death at a Funeral, so he technically ripped himself off.)
16. We’re 45-minutes in and I don’t care if Jack and Dina get together.
17. Hold on. What’s happening now? They’re pulling a Sliding Doors? Also it’s been almost an hour with no hint of it being that movie. Okay, there are some clues in Daiso Judi Dench’s narration, but this sudden shift in tone so late in the film is not helping its case.
18. I just looked up the summary of this thing on my phone. It reads: “A wedding in Rome is served up with multiple endings, thanks to a misplaced sedative. a seating arrangement mix-up and a missed connection.” It’s been almost an hour. How many more “endings” can they fit in the remaining 40 minutes?
19. Remember Run Lola Run? Remember how subtle they were at hinting how the domino effect changes things? There is none of that here. Nothing.
20. I miss Hugh Grant.
21. I don’t understand why Jack doesn’t just tell Dina what’s going on. Then the both of them can fix this together. They’ll have a little escapade in an Italian villa. Hijinks will ensue. And so will love. I want to watch that movie. Can we watch that movie instead?
22. The best thing about this movie is Hayley (Eleanor Tomlinson). She is a credible bride. All she wants is for this day to be a happy one. She knows she’s lucked out. As with everyone else, you fuck up along the way, and when things eventually work out, you don’t want to do anything to ruin that. She’s the only character I well and truly believed in and rooted for. Oh, and Bryan, her stupid best friend too.
23. The best line in the movie was when play-play Judi Dench says that: “Chance can be a real bastard”. Which is something I think will resonate with a lot of people.
24. There are outtakes in the credits that are funnier than what actually happened in the movie. Did they shoot a version where we actually got to see alternate versions of the same event? And if they did, why did they only show us the two most boring versions?
25. Sure, all of this could have happened. And has happened to a bunch of us in varying degrees. But it’s just so badly executed here. I didn’t care if Jack and Dani ended up getting their shot. The movie just didn’t establish enough about their connection for me to believe that they truly deserve this love. Hell, at the end of this whole thing, it’s still 50-50. I have no idea if they’re going to make. And honestly, I don’t really care.
26. Then again, what’s the real ending? Or are both endings just as arbitrary as each other? In which case, why do I care? Where’s the love? Where’s the happily ever after? Nothing is real. Fuck this. I’m going to bed.
27. I miss Hugh Grant.
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