Primarily responsible for saving Connelly’s kielbasa are the performances of Gabriel Byrne and Lena Olin. These two fine actors bring dignity and resonance to their roles and a credibility and coherence of tone to both the farce and the poignancy of the uneven script. In their skillful, passionate work, Polish Wedding is able at least occasionally to reveal a genuinely sweet heart and thoughtful intelligence.

In the early establishing shots, we might think we’re looking at a town on the flat plains of Quebec or a parish in southern Louisiana. The working-class houses, old and old-fashioned, line the gray grid of streets with a gray, shabby-genteel determination. The landmark of the community, the one monumental edifice rising impressively and watchfully from the landscape, is the church; that is, until we meet Olin’s character, Jadzia, who with her husband Bolek (Byrne) runs a successful bakery. Sensuous, mid-forties, and fierce, Jadzia – like the Church with whom she is somewhat at odds – also looms large in this landscape, and particularly in the lives of her husband, daughter Hala (Claire Danes), and four sons.

The loopy plot involves the marital compromises that have been made over the years between Jadzia and the long-suffering Bolek, the compromises Hala makes between spirit and flesh, and the spiritual compromises between the women and the Church which have evolved over generations into a variant, more pragmatic, but nonetheless respected, moral code. Everything moves toward a warm and fuzzy Hallmark-card resolution, but not before each of the characters has to fight his way through some interestingly thorny questions about marriage, sex, family, and Catholicism.