Product Description

Hysterically funny, fresh, and brimming with wit, MURIEL'S WEDDING is the comedy hit celebrated by critics nationwide! No one ever paid much attention to Muriel and her humdrum small-town life, so she and her best friend, Rhonda, decide to leave it behind and head for the big city ... where they end up having the exciting adventure of their lives! What's more, soon everyone takes notice when Muriel becomes engaged to a handsome and popular sports hero! You'll love every hilarious minute as Muriel discovers that even when it seems all her dreams are coming true, the path to the altar still has plenty of surprising twists!

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #4803 in DVD
• Brand: BUENA VISTA HOME VIDEO
• Released on: 1999-05-18
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 1.85:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, DVD, Letterboxed, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English
• Number of discs: 1
• Running time: 106 minutes

Amazon.com
Ever since the late '70s when the Australian New Wave was in full surge, Down Under directors have delivered movies that often hit you like news from another planet. Offbeat characters, weird narrative twists, and a tart mixture of laughs and catastrophe--this is the juice that fuels such flicks as Proof, The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Strictly Ballroom, Heavenly Creatures, and most certainly Muriel's Wedding. Directed by P.J. Hogan (who would go on to helm the Hollywood hit My Best Friend's Wedding), this little gem follows tradition by featuring an authentic misfit: Muriel (Toni Collette), a great overweight horse of a girl obsessed with getting married and the music of ABBA. Appropriately, we first meet Muriel at a wedding, all trussed up in a leopardskin number she's boosted for the occasion. When her snotty peers insist that she give up the bridal bouquet to someone who might actually get hitched, when one of the guests turns out to be a clerk in the very store where Muriel ripped off her outfit--you gotta laugh, she's such an unmitigated mess. A loser, her philandering politician father (Bill Hunter) calls her--along with his doormat wife and his other couch-potato offspring. But this movie's no exercise in geek-bashing. As Muriel takes up with feisty Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths) and moves from Porpoise Spit to the big city, her good-hearted grin and zest for life draw us in despite hilarious gaffes and mishaps. (Making out with a boy for the first time, Muriel suddenly finds herself awash in styrofoam: the oaf has unzipped the beanbag chair instead of her skin-tight leather pants.) Muriel's Wedding covers territory Hollywood would banish from a comedy--Rhonda's cancer, the suicide of Muriel's mother, a marriage of convenience to an arrogant athlete--yet, like its heroine, it never loses its sense of humor, its will to move on to whatever good thing might happen next. Everyone in the idiosyncratic cast is terrific, but it's Toni Collette's Dancing Queen who makes Muriel's Wedding a cinematic celebration you won't forget. --Kathleen Murphy

From The New Yorker
The Australian director P. J. Hogan's début was a big hit in his native country. Toni Collette plays Muriel, the shyest member of a bored and bulbous family living in Porpoise Spit. Her only resource is old Abba tapes, her only dream to marry; the identity of the bridegroom is immaterial. Muriel's quest for contentment includes vacationing in the sun, sharing an apartment with her best friend (Rachel Griffiths), and trying on wedding dresses under false pretenses. The result is being sold as a feel-good picture in the same groove as "Strictly Ballroom," but there's a major difference: Hogan's movie doesn't feel good for long. The loud and lurid comedy, verging on caricature, soon grows bleak with bad news-divorce, cancer, suicide-none of which deepens the film; it just turns it into a downer. But the two fine, edgy performances by Collette and Griffiths keep things afloat. When they squeeze into shining satin and actually impersonate Abba, you experience both the sadness of delusion and the bliss of high camp. -Anthony Lane
Copyright © 2006 The New Yorker

Customer Reviews

"You're Terrible Muriel"....
But fortunately, this movie is far from! An impressive cast, wonderful story, and even more catchy soundtrack will leave you humming for weeks afterwards. Muriel's Wedding is a tour de force of wonderful filmmaking at its best.

Muriel's Wedding tells the tale of Muriel Heslop, an appropriate name for a girl without much of an identity. At the beginning of the movie, Muriel is a put upon girl with a bleak future and an even more bleak present. She attends the wedding of a "friend" of hers in a stolen dress, which sets up Muriel's life as a series of lies she tells to make herself into something. One lie begets another, and soon, Mariel is off to Syndey with new gal pal Rhonda. Muriel struggles to find herself amidst the lies she tells and the real life for which she yearns, thus the story. This film is most unpredictable, and full of wonderful nuanced surprises that totally make sense to the story.

Toni Collette deserves a standing ovation for her performance of Muriel. This was the first movie that I ever saw her in, and who knew the range of talent she possess. Just watch this movie, and then Sixth Sense, The Hours, and Connie and Carla, and see the range she covers. It should only be a matter of time before people realize her immense and total talent. Just watch Toni walking down the aisle as Muriel; her total, goofy joy is palpable... amazing stuff.

Also appearing is the wonderful and solid Rachel Griffiths as her friend Rhonda. Together, they turn in a tour de force performance to help hapless Muriel find herself.

Much must be said for director PJ Hogan's handling of this material. Given to a lesser director, the script may have gotten out of hand with its numerous twists and turns. Hogan trusts his actors and the stories, and allows them to show through. Also, the film is visually brilliant. Muriel's lip sync of the ABBA song in itself is a scene right from another Australian import "Priscilla Queen of the Desert".

Not to mention the music. ABBA songs feature prominently throughout the movie, and actually allow for the story of the movie to progress wonderfully. It has been said that profits from Muriel's Wedding allowed for the creation of another ABBA delight, the musical "Mamma Mia". If that's true, what another wonderful gift from this movie.

It seemed in the 1990's, Australian performed a wonderful trifecta of movies that blew away American audiences: Muriel's Wedding, Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, and Strictly Ballroom. Muriel's Wedding may be the lesser known of the three, but it is equally as strong. If you want a funny, funny movie, with wonderful acting, and a dash of drama thrown in, plan to attend Muriel's Wedding soon!

Unconventional comedy
This is one of those comedies that will make you laugh hysterically and then shut the audience up with a sudden tragedy. The story follows Muriel (Collette), an overweight ugly duckling who is ridiculed by her friends and her father but finds solace in ABBA songs and best friend Griffiths. Moving from her home town of Porpoise Spit she begins to find a new life for herself.

Fortunately this rites-of-passage drama doesn't lay it on heavy with the sentimentality. This brings about a conclusion that's nothing short of depressing but still poignant. The comedy is wonderfully crass, especially from Muriel's friends from Porpoise Spit and the sheer gaudiness of the whole movie is beautifully carried by all concerned. When Muriel's bridesmaids waddle up the aisle to an ABBA song, or Collette and Griffiths jubilently belt out tunes at a karaoke bar, you'll be laughing.

Given this, it's rare to find such comedy that will bring you crashing down to earth with suicide, cancer and an unhappy arranged marriage. This is one of those movies that will never make you cry; it will make you sympathise with its characters. It's certainly a great gift of Hogan's that he manages to pull both genres off so well at the same time.

But this wouldn't be half as good if it wasn't for Collette and Griffiths' magnificently crazy, emotional performances. 'Muriel's Wedding' should also be cheered for the fact that it doesn't succumb to typical Hollywood glitz and glamour. Muriel remains overweight throughout the whole movie, there's no 'Pygmalion'-like twist, it's the person that changes and perhaps that's what the movie is about. Completely unmissable.

Dreams can come true if you're true to your self
Our heroine Muriel, dumpy, suburban, open, guileless, trusting, who has a corrupt Dad, an oppressed Mum, two siblings who are variously lazy and stupid, falls in love with and marries her dream "man" - what else but a white, blue-eyed blonde South African born swimming champion who is the quintessence of selfishness, self aggrandisement, vanity, and shallowness - but finds "true" love in friendship with her crippled buddy played superbly by Rachel Griffith. Some stupendous and memorable moments, one being when Muriel's mother sets fire to her backyard with its Hills Hoist in its centre. Funny, touching, and great feel good movie. Peopled by some terrific characters. The ABBA scene is a gem! One to own and revisit.