The Wedding Video
From the writer and director of CALENDAR GIRLS, THE WEDDING VIDEO is a romantic comedy set in the cut-throat world of English society weddings.
The Team
| Role | People |
|---|---|
| Director | Nigel Cole (Made In Dagenham, Calendar Girls, Saving Grace) |
| Writer | Tim Firth (Confessions of a Shopoholic, Kinky Boots, Calendar Girls) |
| Producer | James Gay-Rees (Exit Through the Gift Shop, Senna) |
| Cast | Rufus Hound (Hounded, Famous and Fearless, Celebrity Juice), Lucy Punch (Bad Teacher, A Good Old Fashioned Orgy, Dinner For Schmucks), Robert Webb (Peep Show, Mitchell & Webb, Confetti), Harriet Walter (The Young Victoria, Atonement, Babel, Sense & Sensibility), Miriam Margolyes (Harry Potter, Being Julia, The Age of Innocence) |
The Story
From the writer and director of CALENDAR GIRLS, THE WEDDING VIDEO is a romantic comedy set in the cut-throat world of English society weddings.
RAIF (Rufus Hound) is a shambolic oaf with a great sense of humour who is suddenly asked to be his brother’s best man. His present to the happy couple, he decides, will be a video of their wedding. He returns from abroad to meet brother TIM (Robert Webb) for the first time in years and his fiancée SASKIA (Lucy Punch). From that moment his life – and the lives of everyone in his film – will change for good.
Our film is his film – the final edited version with music, live action, interviews, the works. It’s the wedding equivalent of Spinal Tap. And thank God Raif caught it all on film, because no-one would have believed it otherwise. What happens to Tim and Saskia is what happens to every bride and groom and will ring true with everyone who has ever got married: they start to wonder ‘whose wedding is it anyway?’
Raif returns to find his once-bohemian brother has undergone a total change of character and for some reason is marrying into the most socially aspirant of families. Saskia’s Grandmother, PATRICIA (Miriam Margolyes), is a human Death Star who feels she was born to a higher social level. Saskia’s Mother, (formerly single-Mum) ALEX, (Harriet Walter) suddenly married money and became a doyenne of the ‘Cheshire Set’ – the Beverley Hills of England.
As Alex tries to compete with this social world and so win the approval of her snobby mother, Raif starts to uncover the sheer scale of the wedding industry in the 21st century. Personalised ring pillows, individually-composed entrance music… There is unlimited expensive crap on offer. Weirdly, former backpacker Tim seems to be buying into all this, whereas Saskia – who was born into it – isn’t so sure. Raif seems increasingly distanced from his brother and increasingly drawn to Saskia. The film-making causes him to spend more time with her and he starts to realise that despite her socially-opposed background she’s actually the female equivalent of him. She can out-drink, out-eat and out-filth him.
Relationships between bride, groom and best man are blown apart as skeletons begin to surface. Tim and Raif have to face up to the fact that neither of them have coped with the loss of their parents. Tim and Saskia have to face up to the fact that they’re getting married for totally the wrong reasons. Then all three have to face the fact that the sun is rising on the most over-the-top wedding in Cheshire history, and they’re the stars.
