This ‘Destination Wedding’ does no one any favors

All right, then, let’s rip off the Band-Aid: “Destination Wedding” is torture. And not just because this would-be romantic comedy is grating, cheap-looking and a mighty drag: it also turns two seasoned, likable actors into characters you’ll want to throttle long before the credits roll.

Frank (Keanu Reeves) and Lindsay (Winona Ryder) are deeply damaged misanthropes who collide at a California wedding. Initial contact is smoothed by a mutual dislike of the groom, who happens to be Frank’s half brother and Lindsay’s former fiancé — the one who jilted her years earlier. The woman can really hold a grudge — and her breath too, as her hostile comments seem to cease only when she exhales, for no discernible reason, on whatever sickly-looking plant is nearby.

Nothing, however, is as ailing as the screenplay (by director Victor Levin), which gives Frank the best lines — most of them in the trailer — and a nasty throat-clearing habit that sounds as if a nest of angry rattlesnakes has set up home in his larynx. And because he and Lindsay have the only two speaking roles (aside from a bored mountain lion), the movie plays like one long, snippy couples-therapy session. On planes and at dinner, in bed and during sex, the pair bicker and bitch in uninspired, often static two-shots while a banda-style score tootles desperately behind them.

Occasionally, subdued extras wander around to remind us there’s a wedding somewhere in the vicinity, but so disconnected are they from our dueling stars that they might as well be in a different movie. They probably wish that they were.

This story was originally published September 6, 2018 at 10:37 AM with the headline "This ‘Destination Wedding’ does no one any favors."