Muriel's Wedding (1994)
Directed by P.J. Hogan
Socially awkward Muriel Heslop wants nothing more than to get married. Unfortunately, due to her oppressive politician father, Muriel has never even been on a date. Ostracized by her more socially adept friends, Muriel runs into fellow outcast Rhonda Epinstalk, and the two move from their small Australian town to the big city of Sydney, where Muriel changes her name and begins the arduous task of redesigning her life to match her fantasies.
6 connections found
View:
6 connections, in both directions
What critics compared Muriel's Wedding to
Much of “The Dressmaker,” which is based on a novel that Moorhouse and her filmmaker husband, P.J. Hogan (“Muriel’s Wedding”), adapted, has a fractured fable quality built on rubber-faced acting — save Winslet, shrewd enough to underplay as a contrast — and comic obviousness.
Director Jocelyn Moorhouse (Proof, A Thousand Acres) co-scripts with P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding), based on the fierce and fantastical novel by Rosalie Ham.
This cartoonish yet confrontational approach recalls the work of Moorhouse's husband P.J. Hogan, who collaborated with her on The Dressmaker's script (and whose own first feature, Muriel's Wedding, was set in the comparably horrid Australian town of Porpoise Spit).
Adapted by Moorhouse (returning to directing after an absence of 18 years) and her husband P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding), the film is set in the 1950s and stars Kate Winslet as Myrtle ‘Tilly’ Dunnage, who returns to her home town of Dungatar and announces, “I’m back, you bastards”, after a lengthy period studying dress-making in Paris.
In adapting Rosalie Ham’s debut novel, screenwriters P.J. Hogan (Muriel’s Wedding) and Jocelyn Moorhouse (Proof) aren’t after the usual bloody release but rather what Moorhouse has described as a more “feminine” form of revenge.
Feeling like it belongs to that 1990s era of garish movies from Down Under, perhaps it’s no surprise the co-writer is her husband P.J. Hogan, the director of Aussie camp classic Muriel’s Wedding.
From the loveable ugly duckling of Muriel's Wedding and the glamorous rock chick of Velvet Goldmine to the rattled mother of The Sixth Sense, and now the bereft Sandy of Japanese Story, Collette inhabits each movie as if dressed in a different skin - indeed, many viewers may not even realise that her various roles were performed by the same person.
In Muriel's Wedding, director Hogan orchestrated sympathy for a perennial underdog obsessed with marriage; here, we're meant to empathise with a Machiavellian anti-hero - as Julianne humiliates her rival at a karaoke club, re-routes the honeymoon, and generally comes on like Glenn Close in Fatal Attraction.
Since Hogan's first film was "Muriel's Wedding", I suppose he was a natural choice to direct another wedding picture.
My Best Friend's Wedding was written by Ronald Bass (Rain Man, Dangerous Minds, Waiting to Exhale) and directed by P.J. Hogan, who knows how to make a wedding comedy, having helmed the Australian import Muriel's Wedding.
Aussie director P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding") helms and Ronald Bass writes a romantic comedy that is both mawkish and subversive, where the comedy is grating at times but the story does get away from the usual feel-good sitcom reality by bringing out the morally worst potentials in all of us.
Directed by P.J. Hogan (Muriel's Wedding) and written by Ronald Bass.
Director P.J. Hogan, in familiar territory having directed "Muriel's Wedding" in 1994, resorts occasionally to cheap metaphors, but he makes up for it by taking the film in some unexpected directions with terrific casting.
The millionth adaptation of the iconic kids epic written by J.M. Barrie gets a more faithful, loyal, and perhaps a darker edgier tone this time with the contemporary version directed by P.J. Hogan of “Muriel’s Wedding” who gives incredible and stunning direction this time around providing very entertaining adventure fare for all ages.
(Hogan's last two major films were "My Best Friend's Wedding" [1997] and "Muriel's Wedding" [1994], and screenwriter Michael Goldenberg wrote "Bed of Roses" [1996], so it's not surprising that romance should rear its head in their current collaboration.)
The new "Pan,'' directed and co-written for the screen by P.J. Hogan ("Muriel's Wedding''), opens in an idealized Edwardian London where the art of storytelling still holds children rapt -- a nice image in this era of video- game instant gratification.
If director P.J. Hogan had acknowledged this aspect -- and his Muriel's Weddingproves he knows his way around edgy material -- he might have produced an enlightened film.
Imagine a feature-length version of the musical numbers in the similarly ABBA-loving Muriel's Wedding and you'll get the gist.
Advertisement
The Intouchables achieved that feat as did Muriel's Wedding, Ghost World, the underrated Shirley Valentine and the recent Can You Ever Forgive Me?.