Reel Review Roundup

Top End Wedding (PG)

Staring: Miranda Tapsell, Gwilym Lee, Kerry Fox

Directed by: Wayne Blair

Three and a half stars

Review by: Julian Wright

Australia’s latest big screen offering is a fun and moving dramedy that rivals 90s classic Muriel’s Wedding as the best wedding themed film this country has to offer.

Cute Adelaide couple Lauren (Miranda Tapsell) and Ned (Gwilym Lee) are madly in love and have just become engaged. Their engagement period is short though, with Lauren’s icy cold boss (Kerry Fox) allowing her only 10 days off for the ceremony.

The about-to-be newlyweds haul ass up to Darwin where Lauren grew up so she can have her dream traditional Aboriginal wedding surrounded by her beloved family. But there is a hitch: her Mum (Ursula Yovich) has disappeared and her Dad (Huw Higginson) is in a depressive state.

Lauren and Ned play Nancy Drew and embark on a road trip to track down her missing Mum in time for the wedding.

The set up and delivery of this story is fairly routine (you can tell how it will all end), but the exploration of the bond between mother and daughter and the connection Aboriginal people have to their culture and land offers thought provoking substance.

Miranda Tapsell (whose idea this story was) is an absolute gem and is Julia Roberts level radiant. Her endless and appealing energy beams off the screen and her immense watch-ability carries Top End Wedding a long way.

Fun, silly and laugh-out-loud at several points along the journey, Top End Wedding is a winning recipe and surefire crowd-pleaser.

This entry was posted on May 2, 2019 at 12:38 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.