The Wedding
The Wedding
| 14 May 2000 (USA)
The Wedding Trailers

The beautiful Tanya returns to her small mining town, after supposedly working as a model in Moscow. She decides to marry her shy school sweetheart Mishka, who now works in the mine. The miners finally receive some pay, but Mishka still ends up with no money to buy his bride a gift, so he seeks the help of his perpetually drunk buddy Garkusha. Mishka's poor working-class family all help to put on a fine wedding with copious amounts of vodka, even though they are suspicious of Tanya's occupation in Moscow, and of her connection with her Mafia ex-boyfriend Borodin.

Reviews
Kattiera Nana I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.
BootDigest Such a frustrating disappointment
Tedfoldol everything you have heard about this movie is true.
Cheryl A clunky actioner with a handful of cool moments.
info-au-gay This is truly an extraordinary film. Not at all what I expected and better than any representation that Hollywood has ground out - "Father of the Bride" through to Robert Altman's cynical view in "A Wedding".I found the whole film mesmerising. The heroine is incredibly beautiful and one can believe that she is a top model. Her hero is wonderfully ordinary, as are all the various characters in this story. The plot unfolds in a way that reminds me of "The Fireman's Ball" (Milos Forman). Maybe it is the way it is in Eastern Europe? Whatever, the viewer feels that they are there, part of the wedding party. I once saw a play called "The Tinker's Wedding", which attempted to capture the atmosphere of a gypsy party, and failed (my view). Watching this production, I am more than ever convinced that it failed. I am prepared to go out on a limb & say that this is one of the most memorable films I have ever seen. It deserves an Oscar. I have been trying to get a DVD and have been offered a copy, in Russian only, from a distributor in Helsinki. If any IMDb reader knows where to locate a copy (with English subtitles). please let me know.
plamya-1 I am grateful to the commentators who suggested comparisons to Robert Altman's "Wedding" and the Indian "Monsoon Wedding"-- the comparison that came to mind for me was "Sweet Home Alabama." But I definitely find it the greatest depiction of contemporary Russian culture, especially as it shows provincial, rather than big-city life. I titled my comments "Laughter through Tears," as that is a phrase associated with one of Russia's greatest writers, Nikolai Gogol, who inaugurated the absurd and grotesque in Russian literature. I know Pavel Lunguin as the director of "Taxi Blues," and find his development as a filmmaker in the 10 years between the two films very compelling. Longuin, to my mind, is one of the few filmmakers who has found his own authentic Russian voice in contemporary cinema.
Roemer This amazing comedy mocks all film rules, giving you hardly any opportunity to predict what comes next. This wedding is a wodka-loaden, Russian, chaotic party with a bride worth alone to watch the film for, amazing scenes (like in the orphanage), with extreme characters who never become unreal. It's very warm, very funny, sometimes even scary although nothing really extreme happens. Weird things happen, though. The movie starts with Tanya, a supermodel, returning to her home village from Moscow, looking for a shy mineworker she was in love with when she was 14, and making him a proposal: flip a coin, heads is marrying, tails is not marrying. Later on, you'll understand why. You'll love this film if you can enjoy movies that are not by-the-book.
pybcan As a North American who spent three months in Russia in 1995, all I can say is that this movie is a true reflection of what I experienced while I was there. The atmosphere of the film is true to life. If ones wants to get the feeling of a Russian party, this is it. Even though people don't have much to live on, they are ready to chip in and to share everything they have. This is not a comedy, this is a social study on life in Russia in 2000, but it is enjoyable.