20 Years Later, ‘Wedding Crashers’ Is The Only Movie That Makes Weddings Bearable
The year is 2005. You run into the theater complex to escape the endless loop of Gwen Stefani’s “Hollaback Girl” and the excitement surrounding the latest season of American Idol (they all suck).
There are two main options: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory or Wedding Crashers. Tired of seeing Johnny Depp play the same character for the umpteenth time in a row, you buy a ticket for the latter.
What occurs over the next two hours is a spiritual connection to the gods of laughter, as you chuckle until you sound like a seal and can’t anymore. David Dobkin’s R-rated comedy pulls no punches, poking fun at the superficial experiences of many weddings and how they’re the perfect playground for opportunists.
Vince Vaughn’s Jeremy Grey and Owen Wilson’s John Beckwith figure out the ultimate con: they crash weddings under false identities to hook up with the guests. The plan proves successful until they crash the wedding of Christina Cleary (Jenny Alden), the daughter of the U.S. Secretary of the Treasury, William Cleary (Christopher Walken), and involve themselves with William’s other daughters. Jeremy sleeps with Gloria (Isla Fisher), while John develops an interest in Claire (Rachel McAdams). Both Jeremy and John end up being invited to spend an extended weekend with the Clearys, where they need to keep up the facade and hope no one discovers who they are. What they encounter is a family with their own litany of issues.
Weddings attract opportunists
Make no mistake about it, Jeremy and John are scumbags and emotional vampires. They lie to women to lure them into bed, making up elaborate stories about who they are to win their trust and have their way with them. There’s nothing cool about their behavior, and they’re only a rung on the ladder of despicableness below their pal Chazz Reinhold (Will Ferrell), who has moved on to funeral crashing.
What Jeremy and John do is expose the holes – and quite frankly, the security aspect – of various weddings. So often, people get so caught up in building the wedding of their dreams that they roll out long invite lists that they never check or keep track of. Since it’s expected that people will come with partners, no one bats an eyelid when they see someone they might not recognize at the reception. As long as the tables are full, that’s what matters to most couples. This opens the door for opportunists, such as Jeremy and John, to step in and run their con. They aren’t the only people there with their own agenda, because how many people show up to drink and eat at the cost of others then bounce when they’re done?
Weddings are events for family tension and existential crisis
Wedding Crashers also demonstrates how weddings turn into events for family tension. All the internal politics come out of the woodwork, as relatives clash over who’s there, who isn’t, and the choices made by the couple on their special day. Want to know why a lot of people choose to not get married nowadays? One, it’s expensive, and two, there’s always weird family dynamics to navigate. The stress isn’t worth it in the end.
Then, there’s the pressure for the other guests and members of the wedding. “Oh, so and so are married now. When are you tying the knot?” How often is that something you have heard at a wedding? It happens. All. The. Time. There’s societal pressure for couples to get married, because that’s seen as the right thing to do, and somehow people seem to think it’s okay to bully other couples into taking this step. Never once do they consider if it’s something the couple want, prepared for, or are in a financial position to do.
It isn’t only the couples who get the talk, but the singles too. In fact, they receive harsher words, because “time is ticking” and “you aren’t getting any younger.” What was meant to be an event to celebrate the union of family or friends turns into a mini-existential crisis where people wonder if they’ll be alone for the rest of their lives. So, it’s easy to see how people like Jeremy and John can swoop in when others are in a vulnerable state and looking for love (or at least think they are). The singles almost want to believe they will find love at a wedding, desperately latching onto the possibility that a stranger could be the one.
Face it, ‘Wedding Crashers’ is the most realistic movie about weddings
In Hollywood, romantic comedies have glamorized weddings as where a couple’s love is truly cemented and the greatest romantic gestures take place. Wedding Crashers doesn’t discard this – in fact, it has its own thoughts about love and its own grand gesture at the end. However, the film, through the lens of comedy, takes a look at how weddings aren’t always the magical and special events that people make them out to be. They’re also the causes of immense stress and headaches.
Ultimately, it’s a far more realistic depiction of what takes place at weddings. Yeah, there are Jeremys and Johns lurking at these events, but they’re only part of a larger discussion that needs to happen. Don’t be fooled by the comedy and goofy jokes – Wedding Crashers may very well be the most honest representation of what weddings are really like.
