Serial (Bad) Weddings

Serial (Bad) Weddings (2014) is about a conservative Catholic French couple marrying off four daughters. The first three marry, in turn, an Algerian Muslim, a Sephardi Jew and a Han Chinese man. Each time the parents cope a little less well. Then the youngest announces her engagement to a Black West African. It was an extraordinary hit in France, selling 12.35 million tickets and becoming one of the most watched comedies in the country's history. On a budget of 12.8 million euros it grossed 176.4 million dollars worldwide. The odd part is that it never opened in the English speaking world. Distributors turned it down as politically unacceptable and possibly racist, and that refusal itself became a news story in the British press. A film millions of people laughed at in France could not find a screen in Britain or America. French critics and audiences embraced it. The consistent objection in English language reviews is that the film does not soften its racial and religious stereotypes so much as run on them. It runs 94 minutes. Good for: French family comedy, culture clash humour, and fast dialogue. Less good for: the film sets up its stereotypes first and only partly dismantles them, and for some viewers those stereotypes are the problem from the start. The resolution arrives at an agreement that comes far too easily.