Dir. Debbie Isitt, UK, 2006, 100 mins
Cast: Martin Freeman, Alison Steadman, Robert Webb, Jessica Stevenson
Review by Carol Allen
Confetti is a mockumentary in the Best in Show tradition, only this one is British - in fact, very British, not only in terms of being made here but in its eccentric characters. The story is about a wedding magazine competition to find the couple planning the wackiest wedding. The prize is a new house with the competition being played out by the threefinalists at their actual weddings.
It has a good cast of largely television faces from shows such as The Office, Spaced, Green Wing and Peep Show. Martin Freeman plays the groom, who wants to mount his nuptials as a Hollywood musical, with Jessica Stevenson as his bride and Alison Steadman as her interfering mother. The Office aside, Freeman is becoming a very appealing film actor, with great comic timing and a rare ability to really listen to his fellow actors. You can tell what someone else is saying or doing just by leaving the camera on his face. The bravery award however has to go to Robert Webb and Olivia Colman as a naturist couple, who are planning a naked wedding and actually play most of their scenes in the nude, while the third couple, tennis fanatics Stephen Mangan and Meredith McNeil, plan their nuptials as a love-all tennis match. Helping the couples make their dream weddings come true are a couple of very romantic-minded and very camp wedding planners Heron & Hough (Vincent Franklin and Jason Watkins), who steal most of the scenes they are in. Political correctness may accuse the film of stereotyping here, but I just thought they were very funny and rather sweet.
The whole film was improvised, leaving director Debbie Isitt with some one hundred and fifty hours of material to wade through. On the whole, she has made her selection well. There are some very good sight gags in the film and some very funny dialogue. Alison Steadman is, of course, a veteran of this from her years of working with Mike Leigh, and while she is drawing a bit on her Abigail's Party character grown older, she does come up with some corkers. Her spiky relationship with herex-husband (Ron Cook) is a joy.
When we get to the actual weddings, the film rather loses the "mockumentary" feel, when frankly the choreographers take over. But they do a good job and while all three set pieces are very funny, as a
musicals fan myself, my favourite is Freeman and Stevenson's Busby Berkeley style event, where the chorus girls come in all ages and sizes;fat, thin, sixteen to seventy. Just like the guests at a real family
wedding.
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