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Asquith's Quiet Wedding is a distant model, the groom (Charles Pfluger) arrives by ferry at the Long Island manor situated "between Kiddieland and an old folks' home." Marital jitters, Nouvelle Vague hiccups: Jump cuts, fast-forward, slow-motion, disembodied hubbub, the Old Guard through a memory of the 8½ spa. The mansion has a cemetery in the backyard, amid stuffed beasts the future father-in-law clarifies husbandly duties ("Expect to get measles from the children... Learn to mow the law and wash the car on Sundays.") The bride (Jill Clayburgh) has a granny nightie picked out for the honeymoon and prepares her darling a gruesome breakfast, later on a quiet huddle has prison bars superimposed over the couple. The Complete Bridegroom Guide illustrated, Buster Keaton by Brian De Palma et al. A stroll through the woods with the reverend, the ditched stag party, a plane ride with the swami. Male anxieties for days, stoked by garrulous chums (Robert De Niro, William Finley) prone to breaking into a Singin' in the Rain two-step. "Both high-spirited and sobering," the rehearsal dinner abuts on kaleidoscopic horror (Valda Setterfield's toast is a sketch fulfilled by Fiona Shaw in The Black Dahlia), on the other hand the mousy organist (Judy Thomas) can't quite live up to the vision of a would-be temptress. Along the way Truffaut's Les Mistons is gratefully acknowledged, at last by the grace of Godard the couple are hitched on church steps. "Look at the universe, boy!" The easy shift from marriage here to war in Greetings is part of the joke. With Jennifer Salt, Raymond McNally, and Sue Ann Gilfillan. In black and white.
--- Fernando F. Croce |