Confetti is an offbeat British mockumentary in the Christopher Guest fashion,
combining laughs with sentiment and apparently employing quite a bit of improv.
The premise this time is that a British bridal magazine is looking for a new
hook in its annual "wedding of the year" issue. After all, classic white dresses
all look alike, and the traditional format is tired, so this year the magazine
will reward the most original wedding with their June cover. The process begins
with auditions. They advertise the concept and invite long lines of people to
bring their ideas to an expert panel of judges, reminiscent of the first round
of American Idol. From the various loony concepts, they settle on three:
- A tennis theme
- A Broadway musical theme
- A naturist theme
These three ideas are to be developed by professional wedding planners, and
all three weddings will be held together in a vast arena as a media event, with
celebrity judges picking the grand prize winner.
Things seem to go poorly. The tennis partners are unsympathetic. The Broadway
couple and their family don't seem to be very musical. Worst of all, the
magazine's lawyers decide that the nudist wedding ain't gonna happen. No nudes
in the arena. No nudes in the magazine.
In a manner somewhat reminiscent of Guest's Best in Show, things work out
much better than planned. The weddings have their bright spots, and we learn to
like the three couples much more than we thought we would (well two of them,
anyway).
While the film is not a complete failure, it doesn't really work. There's
probably a good lesson here for filmmakers. Unless your name is Guest, you
should probably try to make your mockumentary either zany or emotionally
resonant, but not both. It is no simple task to develop sympathetic characters
while ridiculing them. I can't think of many people how have been able to employ
Guest's techniques successfully and even the master himself had a recent misfire
(For Your Consideration).
In addition to the structural problems inherent in the
technique, Confetti just isn't very funny, so it plays out less like a comedy
than an irritating drama with annoying characters. I found myself quite bored
quite often.
I don't especially recommend it, not even for fans of comedies, not even for
fans of Lord Guest's films.
If you are not familiar with our grading system, you need to
read the
explanation, because the grading is not linear. For example, by
our definition, a
C is solid and a C+ is a VERY good movie. There are very few Bs
and As. Based on our descriptive system, this film is a:
Barely watchable comedy.
