The Wedding Singer . Austin Chronicle . 10-12-98

The Wedding Singer

DIRECTED BY: Frank Coraci

REVIEWED: 10-12-98

Maybe the trailer was the best thing about The Wedding Singer, a theatrical release only six short months ago, but there's certainly a lot to like about Adam Sandler's harmless paean to the Eighties. Sandler, shedding his slapsticky, relatively unfunny roots, goes for a full-blown parody of The Breakfast Club and Sixteen Candles set that will have anyone in the 20-to-50 demographic groaning. Yes, as it turns out, we only thought we had rid ourselves of personal excess with the Seventies. The painful reminder of how out-of-style Miami Vice and Michael Jackson are now, however, serves to get you to look around at your clothes and haircut and wonder how we'll make fun of ourselves in the next decade. Fortunately, The Wedding Singer is more than just a history lesson: It's extremely funny to boot. While 1997's Romy and Michele's High School Reunion beat Singer out of the gate as the first Eighties-mocker, the later film is easily a better rental because it so closely follows the John Hughes formula (outcast meets girl, outcast loses girl, outcast gets girl back). It's a formula that, surprisingly, still works, but only with the appropriate depth of tongue in cheek. And even if you don't care for sopping late-teen romances, how many other films are going to give you the opportunity to laugh about the painful memory of Boy George?

--Christopher Null

Interviews
The Wedding Singer

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The Wedding Singer
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Capsule Reviews
The Wedding Singer
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Other Films by Frank Coraci
The Waterboy

Film Vault Suggested Links
Notting Hill
Love Stinks
Picture Perfect

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