WEDDING SINGER, THE/ ***1/2

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The Wedding Singer

***1/2

Cinema Releases - May 5, 1998

Rated on a 4-star scale; USA; Directed by Frank Coraci. Written by Tim Herlihy. Starring Adam Sandler, Drew Barrymore, Matthew Glave, Christine Taylor, Allen Covert.

"The Wedding Singer" bursts onto the screen with furious cuts, fast pans and a loud, brilliant rendition of "You Spin Me Round". It is sung by Adam Sandler, and incredibly, the performance is better than that of Dead or Alive themselves. It's a very nice surprise, and the film itself is one of the nicest surprises of the year so far.

Sandler plays Robbie Hart, a wedding singer left standing at the altar by high school sweetheart Linda, a slutty-looking thing who says that she can't picture herself spending her whole life in her home town with a husband who sings at weddings for $60 a time. In the following weeks, as Robbie feels sorry for himself, he starts to hang around a lot more with his friend Julia Sullivan (Drew Barrymore). Mutual friends such as Holly (Christine Taylor) and Sammy (Allen Covert) notice the obvious, that these two are made for each other, and eventually, of course, they work it out for themselves.

As a set-up for a romance, this is fairly routine stuff. Julia is, of course, engaged to a jerk, Glenn Gulia (Matthew Glave), who cheats on her and brags about it to friends. But the backdrop gimmick goes before the potentially insipid plot, and since the film is set in 1985, this gives "The Wedding Singer" the freedom to be a comedy based on referential humour. A lot of these references are somewhat tacked on, and as a friend of mine pointed out, the film thinks that referential humour is simply created by a reference. But if you want to laugh with this film you will: it's innocently sweet and charming, and to detest it would be akin to kicking a little lost puppy for sitting in your driveway. I allowed myself to give the film a chance, and found myself thoroughly enjoying exchanges such as "Honey, let's go!" "Wait, I'm watching "Dallas"…I think JR's dead or something -- they shot him!".

Even Sandler, who has previously been incredibly irritating in such moronic fare as "Billy Madison", works unexpectedly well here. At times he does stare at the screen moronically, unable to maintain a pause, but for the most part he inspires a reasonable amount of audience sympathy, and in the moments when he allows himself to deliver quiet, seemingly offhand, lines, he is funny.

The other cast members are also good. Drew Barrymore is luminous as the kind, sweet Julia, and her tone will make most viewers leave the cinema cheerfully. Allen Covert, as a chauffeur who wants to be a cross between Michael Jackson and The Fonz, and Christine Taylor, who plays a waitress who gets a knowing amusement out of being easy, both take a skilful grip of their roles, performing more subtly than others might have with the same script, making small gestures and quiet changes in tone to create solid laughs.

There's also a cute appearance late in the movie from Billy Idol, and on the subject of pop music, the period in which the film is set allows for a wonderful 80s soundtrack. It features the aforementioned "You Spin Me Round" as well as "99 Luftballons", "White Wedding", "Everything She Does Is Magic", a remake of "Video Killed The Radio Star", and many others -- so many, in fact, that even at a crisp 90 minutes this will probably be one of those movies where there'll be a couple of different soundtrack albums. They wouldn't be totally out of line, by the way, to include a few of the songs that Sandler sings, since he handles them rather well.

From a screenplay by Tim Herlihy, "The Wedding Singer" was directed by Frank Coraci. It is brimming with happy energy, and Coraci's background as a director of music videos is apparent here, in that his film is a triumph of cinematography, film editing and sound design. His film may not be as good as the 80s nostalgia pic "Grosse Pointe Blank", which was one of the best films of last year, but it is a very worthy feature debut, and if Coraci puts in as much effort into his next film as he did with this one, it should be one to look out for. "The Wedding Singer" is not quite a great film, but it's whimsical, sweet, and the best light entertainment we'll see for awhile.

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