A Family Wedding

I love watching movies that are set in Los Angeles as a location. For me it is great fun to pick out the landmarks, recognize the streets and laugh when the geography is all wrong. But for me the part that didn’t ring true in this film was the culture clash. In Los Angeles the gap between African-American culture and Mexican-American culture is very narrow, and so are the views in A Family Wedding. Los Angeles has been mixing cultures for centuries. I think we are a little further along.

In the 70’s I experienced a culture clash that was enormous. My school was 70% Hispanic, 15% black, and fights broke out so often that they put the entire school on a staggered schedule so that no more than 30% of the campus was on a break at any given time. But I can’t imagine that forty years later that those animosities still exist. We live in a different time and our children are leading the way.

In my opinion this film should have focused more on the economic differences. This is were the real bigotry lies today and that would be an interesting subject to explore. But instead the film relies on cheap shots; loud black people, Mexican garishness, embarrassing relatives and prejudicial stereotypes. Rick Famuyiwa was mining for gold with a shallow pan, what he really needed was a shovel.

Forest Whitaker (The Last King Of Scotland) plays Brad Boyd, a popular radio host living the good life in L.A. When he confronts Carlos Mencia (Mind Of Mencia) who is towing his very expensive car, he gets frustrated and angry and says the wrong thing. Carlos as Miguel Ramirez is frustrated too. He shouldn’t be towing this car. He is actually the owner of the towing company. He is only there because his employees are calling a sick out. They’re are trying to make a point about the company’s lack of health care. This affluent Hispanic man feels that a health plan for his workers would be too expensive. He is more like Brad than he cares to admit.

Brad and Miguel get very heated and start throwing around racist remarks, but little do they know that their children are on the way. Brad’s son Marcus (Lance Gross) and Miguel’s daughter Lucia (America Ferrera) have met in college and are now engaged. They are about to surprise their families in more ways than one. Growing up in multi-cultural Los Angeles their love for each other is colorblind. But for Lucia, the real secret she wants to keep from her family is very different, and religion seems to be a bigger problem than the color of their skin.

If you stop looking at the racial humor in this film there are some very nice dramatic moments. Diana-Maria Riva plays Sonia, Miguel’s wife, and she is morning the loss of her youth. When her own daughters make fun of her and her husband finds his car sexier than his own wife, she wonders if the sacrifices she made have been worth it. On the other side is Regina King. She is Brad’s entertainment lawyer. She has been with Brad and Marcus for over twenty years, only Brad is too stupid to realize that she is in love with him. Instead, he is busy going to night clubs, taking Viagra and picking up groupies at bars. He’s blind to the woman right underneath his own nose. The woman he calls his best friend.

America Ferrera and Lance Gross are really nice and convincing as a couple, but Lucia has a problem standing up to her father. Marcus grew up with a single father who showed nothing but animosity for his ex-wife. Marcus needs to trust Lucia and know that she’ll always be there. He longs to be a part of something big and he is very attracted to Lucia’s large family.

There were many directions that this story could of gone, but I feel that it took the safe route. There are so many other levels there. As it is, it’s mildly amusing, but never once did I laugh out loud. I would have liked to have seen more of the wedding, families are crazy and we all know what humor lies there. But instead the focus seemed to be on the fathers. I found the women much more interesting. At least they weren’t afraid to tell the truth. The men were too busy posturing.

Rating: Rent It Mixing it up at a wedding can be fun