Meet Muriel Heslop - high school drop-out, drifting from one job to another (usually arranged by her horrific, domineering father), no real friends (just a posse of blonde airheads who only let her hang around with them because they feel sorry for her), totally dysfunctional family and of course no boyfriend. Just another loser stuck in a dead-end small town, the charmingly-named Porpoise Spit. The only bright spots in her life are Abba, and the hope of one day being a bride. But on a holiday she pays for by “borrowing” money from her parents, she meets Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths), an old acquaintance from school and the two of them decide to start again in the bright lights of Sydney. Changing her name to Mariel, and with a job and smart new haircut, it’s not long before she actually gets her first date. Her life is officially “as good as an Abba song, as good as Dancing Queen”.
S.O.S.
Then Rhonda discovers she has a tumor in her spine, and despite an operation, will have to spend the rest of her life in a wheelchair. Unless Muriel/Mariel can spend most of her time looking after her, she’ll have no choice but to go back home to Porpoise Spit, something both of them vowed would never happen. Faced with reality, Muriel retreats into fantasy again, building an album of photos from various bridal stores by telling the assistants she needs the pictures to show her dying mother or for her sister who’s in a coma and obviously won’t be able to make it to the wedding.
Knowing Me, Knowing You
Muriel has also not given up on actually getting married. A South African swimmer needs a quick marriage of convenience so he can represent Australia in an upcoming tournament, so of course she selflessly volunteers. Soon Mariel is famous herself, as the bride-to-be of a great champion, with photo shoots and magazine interviews galore. Gradually the “ugly duckling” blossoms, but is so busy planning her wedding she has no time for Rhonda. Unable to cope on her own, Rhonda has no choice but to head back to Porpoise Spit with her mother, but not before a bitter confrontation with the blushing bride at the church. But convinced she is at last somebody (the airheads come crawling to her, desperate to be bridesmaids), that her life now actually has meaning, Muriel refuses to listen. She doesn’t even realize her mother, whose life is steadily declining thanks to her father’s affair, has come to the wedding.
The Winner Takes It All
But the gloss quickly wears off. Given the cold shoulder by her new husband, things go from bad to worse when Muriel hears her mother has died (possibly suicide), and her father now expects her to come home and look after the other kids. Coming out of her shell at last, she returns home for the funeral, but only long enough to tell her father to take some responsibility for his family, ditch her husband and collect Rhonda. You know when the two of them return to Sydney there will be no more touring of bridal shops, unless Muriel finds somebody who really does love her.
Director P J Hogan steers Muriel’s Wedding beautifully between high comedy and pathos, tragedy and hope. If you loved Strictly Ballroom or The Adventures of Priscilla Queen of the Desert, Muriel's Wedding is a definite must for your alternative Aussie cinema collection.
