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List Price: $9.99 | | Label: Miramax
Salesrank: 10516
Released: May 18, 1999 |
| Our Price: $4.03 |
| Used Price: $3.25 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Hysterically funny, fresh, and brimming with wit, MURIEL'S WEDDING is the comedy hit celebrated by critics nationwide! No one ever paid much attention to Muriel and her humdrum small-town life, so she and her best friend, Rhonda, decide to leave it behind and head for the big city ... where they end up having the exciting adventure of their lives! What's more, soon everyone takes notice when Muriel becomes engaged to a handsome and popular sports hero! You'll love every hilarious minute as Muriel discovers that even when it seems all her dreams are coming true, the path to the altar still has plenty of surprising twists!
Description of Muriel's Wedding:
Ever since the late '70s when the Australian New Wave was in full surge, Down Under directors have delivered movies that often hit you like news from another planet. Offbeat characters, weird narrative twists, and a tart mixture of laughs and catastrophe--this is the juice that fuels such flicks as Proof, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Strictly Ballroom, Heavenly Creatures, and most certainly Muriel's Wedding. Directed by P.J. Hogan (who would go on to helm the Hollywood hit My Best Friend's Wedding), this little gem follows tradition by featuring an authentic misfit: Muriel (Toni Collette), a great overweight horse of a girl obsessed with getting married and the music of ABBA. Appropriately, we first meet Muriel at a wedding, all trussed up in a leopardskin number she's boosted for the occasion. When her snotty peers insist that she give up the bridal bouquet to someone who might actually get hitched, when one of the guests turns out to be a clerk in the very store where Muriel ripped off her outfit--you gotta laugh, she's such an unmitigated mess. A loser, her philandering politician father (Bill Hunter) calls her--along with his doormat wife and his other couch-potato offspring. But this movie's no exercise in geek-bashing. As Muriel takes up with feisty Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths) and moves from Porpoise Spit to the big city, her good-hearted grin and zest for life draw us in despite hilarious gaffes and mishaps. (Making out with a boy for the first time, Muriel suddenly finds herself awash in styrofoam: the oaf has unzipped the beanbag chair instead of her skin-tight leather pants.) Muriel's Wedding covers territory Hollywood would banish from a comedy--Rhonda's cancer, the suicide of Muriel's mother, a marriage of convenience to an arrogant athlete--yet, like its heroine, it never loses its sense of humor, its will to move on to whatever good thing might happen next. Everyone in the idiosyncratic cast is terrific, but it's Toni Collette's Dancing Queen who makes Muriel's Wedding a cinematic celebration you won't forget. --Kathleen Murphy
Muriel's Wedding Reviews:
Worst - Movie - Ever!! 
2009-11-30 - If it wasn't for a bet that I had going with a friend, I never would have spent the $3.50 to buy this movie. It was simply awful! I understand the story line and that it's meant to be a comedy, but please don't show this to young girls as they may get the wrong idea. I think giving it an "R" rating will help ensure that young, impressionable girls WON'T see this movie. The only two funny scenes in the entire movie are when Muriel and Rhonda are on vacation and singing Waterloo in a talent show, and when Muriel is walking down the isle to get married, and the song "I Do" is playing as her wedding march. Seemed fitting.
Recap: Don't waste your money.
As for the bet - Which movie better represent Abba music. Mama Mia wins by a landslide!
Not my thing, but I still enjoyed it. 
2009-11-03 - I bought this for my wife and watched it with her. I expected to hate it, but didnt. It's actually pretty well done and has some really funny scenes. You could do a lot worse for a so-called "chick flick".
'Nuff said.
A charming oddball
2009-08-18 - The Bottom Line:
One of those films that you I'm tempted to recommend simply because you probably won't see anything else like it, Muriel's Wedding thankfully features such an interesting take on women and marriage and such a nuanced and well-developed lead character that I can recommend it easily on its own merits; if you crave something different, watch Muriel desperately seek her wedding.
3/4
Before There was "Mamma Mia!".... 
2009-07-12 - There was "Muriel's Wedding." This is one of my all time favorites. As a child of immigrants from Australia I find a special connection to the Motherland both in the film and in the music of ABBA (I know, they're Swedish, but it was what my older brother's listened to when I was growing up.). The story is hilariously funny and just a delicious foretaste of what Toni Collete will go on to do in her career. It's a fun movie, perfect to enjoy for a girls' night.
Another Aussie Gem from the 90s!
2009-06-12 - We love this movie. It was made at the same time and Bill Hunter had to shuttle between locations to play the opressive father here and the transformed outbacker in Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, another Aussie gem from the 90s. Surprising plot, unconventional in a lot of ways. Whether you love Australia as we do or just love good, well-acted, well-scripted indie cinema, you should love this.
