MURIEL'S WEDDING (1994)

P. J. Hogan, Director (1962- )

Trained at the Australian Film and Television School in Sydney, Hogan worked at writing, directing and editing films in his homeland through the 1980s without much recognition. In 1991, he was second unit director and script editor for Proof, directed by his wife, Jocelyn Moorhouse. His screenwriting and directing efforts on Muriel’s Wedding really launched his career, which turned toward comedy satires about women obsessed with marriage. In this vein, his first Hollywood picture, with Julia Roberts and Rupert Everett, was My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997). This success was followed by Unconditional Love (2002) again starring Everett. This less popular romantic comedy, co-written by Hogan and Moorhouse, features a gay British character who gets help from an American woman (Kathy Bates) in solving the murder of his pop-singer lover. Presently, Hogan is at work on a new adaptation of Peter Pan, to be released by Universal for the Christmas holidays (Flint).

Toni Collette (1972- )

            Twenty-two years old when cast as the overweight heroine Muriel, the actress won over the director with her confidence and energetic reading. Then, she gained both instant celebrity and an Australian Film Institute Best Actress Award for her performance. In preparing for this role, Collette also gained over 40 pounds in just 7 weeks, but included in her contract the cost of a personal trainer to help her lose the weight after filming was done. Her interest in acting arose in childhood, and at 14 she performed in a school production of Godspell. After attending the Australian National Institute of Dramatic Art for two years, she returned to the stage to star in Uncle Vanya (“Toni Collette”) and other dramas.

Her first film was the Australian production, Spotswood (aka The Efficiency Expert, 1991), starring Anthony Hopkins and then-newcomer Russell Crowe. After making a few small-budget comedies, Collette had another hit with the British production of Jane Austen’s Emma (1996), alongside star Gwyneth Paltrow, then played the unconventional role of a nun who works in a brothel in Peter Greenaway’s 8 ½ Women (1999). However, she really scored in the mystery-drama The Sixth Sense (1999), where her performance was honored with a Best Supporting Actress Academy Award nomination. Recently, Collette has broadened the depth and breadth of her fine acting repertoire with a one-scene part in the award-winning drama The Hours (2002), and a major role in the lighter coming-of-age comedy About a Boy (2002), in which she plays a frumpy, depressed mom opposite Hugh Grant’s spoiled but awakening playboy. In her twelve-year career, working in over twenty feature films, she has developed rich characterizations in both comedy and drama, in roles as variable as “an eccentric who was confined to an institution by her cruel father. . ., an incarcerated drug addict who proves to have a sweet singing voice. . ., the brassy bottle blonde girlfriend of an ex-con who gradually comes to doubt herself. . . , [and] the American wife of a glam rock singer who recreates herself as a British party girl” (“Toni Collette”).

Tonight’s Film

            Like many successful Australian cinema imports, Muriel’s Wedding brims over with enthusiasm, if not good taste. Without taking itself too seriously, the film still pokes a cruel sort of fun at the losers in its story, as well as at the laughable extremes and the depicted crudeness of Australian culture. Jock Reby, an Aussie from Wollongong, comments on the realistic portrait of life Down Under: “You have the corrupt local councilor taking kickbacks from developers, the lonely guy. . .at the video shop, the vicious gang of clubbing young women making hell for anyone who doesn’t fit in, the wannabe’s losing their dignity trying to fit in” (n.p.). Reby also enjoys the “multi-layered” aspect of the poignant production: “There are moments of supreme hilarity, pathos, triumph and sadness” (n.p.). For some reviewers, this diversity of effects is unsuccessful, perhaps because the director provides no mediating intelligence to interpret the sometimes insipid dreams of an even sympathetic character like Muriel. Likewise, the story provides no fitting justice for the despicable mental cruelty of her father. And for a comedy, this film depicts a lot of lamentable torment doled out to the undeserving. Nonetheless, it won four Australian Academy Awards, which indicates both critical and popular appeal.

Roger Ebert admits that like other Aussie satires, such as “High Tide” (1987), “Proof” (1991), or the brash and rowdy “Strictly Ballroom” (1992), the film “is merciless in its portrait of provincial society, and yet has a huge affection for its misfit survivors” (n.p.). Once viewers realize that the heroine is a socially inept shoplifter of a leopard-skin dress who sings Abba hits and fantasizes about her wedding, then they may suspect that even their bargain-matinee tickets have been wasted. But despite what Ebert recognizes as “a melancholy undercurrent,” the film provides a lot of laughs and, finally, reveals a worthy story in free-spirited Muriel’s self-discovery.   As LA Times movie critic Kenneth Turan notes, “This subversive comedy about self-esteem resists the notion that films have to timidly remain within tidy genre rules” (n.p.). In his view, Muriel’s Wedding succeeds as “a slashing guerilla attack on accepted notions of marriage, family and self-improvement that never allows us to forget the doubt that makes its characters human” (n.p.)

Works Cited

Ebert, Roger. Rev. of “Muriel’s Wedding.” 17 March 1995. 26 May 2003.
URL: http://www.suntimes.com/ebert/ebert_reviews/1995/03/970471.html

Flint, Rebecca. “P. J. Hogan.” All Movie Guide. [Person Search: Hogan, P. J.]
URL: http://www.allmovie.com/cg/x.dll

Reby, Jock. “Muriel's Wedding: User Comments.” 23 September 2002. Internet Movie Data Base.
User Comments on Muriel's Wedding: http://us.imdb.com/CommentsShow?0110598
Muriel's Wedding (1994): http://us.imdb.com/Title?0110598

“Toni Collete.” Hollywood.com. 1999-2003.
URL: http://www.hollywood.com/celebs/bio/celeb/1673078

Turan, Kenneth. Movie Review: “Muriel’s Wedding: Here Comes the Bride, Warts and All.” Los Angeles Times 10 March 1995: n.p.
URL: http://www.calendarlive.com/movies/reviews/cl-movie960406-259.story

Handout prepared by Greg Lyons, 23 May 2003
for the Spring 2003 Cinema Down Under Film Series

Final Feature - Cinema Down Under Film Series:

5/30/03 Once Were Warriors (1994) [R rated, not for children]

Read other reviews, for this and previous series films, at
Film Studies - Index of Online Resources
URL: http://www.cocc.edu/humanities/HIR/Film/index.htm

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Last updated: 26 May 2003
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