Wedding Wars Review!!!
SYNOPSIS: When Shel is asked to plan his brother's wedding to the daughter of Maine's governor, everything goes hunky dory until the governor gives a speech in which he supports banning gay marriage via a constitutional amendment. Knowing that brother Ben wrote the speech-and that he agrees with the stance-Shel goes on strike, prompting gays around the country to close their shops and stop their services. The end goal: to change the governor's-and the country's-mind about gay marriage.
ANALYSIS: A movie with its heart and intentions in the right place comes off as little more than a standard, gay rights fantasy in which the characters end up in the same exact place they started: the governor still backs the ban--which got the whole thing started. Full of stereotypes, including every hairdresser, caterer and otherwise creative person in Maine turning out to be gay, Wedding Wars wants to be dramatic and world changing, but has neither the gumption or the balls to actually step to the plate.
The thing is, this A&E movie of the week never knows if it wants to be a comedy or a drama, political, family, farce...as it is, the 2 hours combines elements from all these genres. And it combines them badly. Ben, as the brother, is vindictive and vengeful. Shel, the gay brother, takes his cause to the extreme. Their parents have their heads stuck so far in the sand that when Shel is forced to come out, it takes them by surprise. The governor is similarly dense, not in the fact Shel is gay, but in the mannerisms of his wife when she's upset with him. Ted, Shel's assistant district attorney boyfriend, doesn't understand why the marriage fight is important. The only person who really gets it is Maggie, the bride to be.
On the whole, the idea of the nation's gays walking out on their jobs to make a point is pure fantasy, nothing more. It's not realistic, it's not responsible, it's not mature. Is that what we really want to show the country and the world? That we're a bunch of little children who essentially take their toys and go home when things don't go our way? I find that idea rather offensive. What happens to the kids or families when both mothers or both fathers walk out on their jobs? We'd be self absorbed to think that the world would grind to a halt. There are straight people-and other gays-who would readily take the jobs. And where does that put us? The fact this is never addressed in the movie is criminal. Those are parts of the real world issues we'd have to face with a nation-wide gay strike. The wedding, at that point, would be immaterial.