Destination Wedding is an arthouse independent romantic comedy film starring Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder. The plot is extremely basic. The two main characters meet at the airport on their way to the same destination wedding in San Luis Obispo, California.
They start out hating each other and trying to avoid each other. They discover that they are staying in adjoining rooms at the winery resort where the wedding is taking place. The two main characters spend the entire movie together and wind up in a romantic relationship with each other at the end.
The movie is shot more like a stage play than a movie. The two main leads are the only characters in the film. No one else in the film has any spoken dialogue or appears on screen interacting with the two leads at all. The film focuses solely on their interaction, character development, and how their relationship changes over the course of the story.
Romantic comedies aren’t really my thing, but this film was so well done that it became one of my favorite films of all time just from one viewing alone. The dialogue was outstanding, hilarious, and extremely intelligent, especially considering that it’s the one and only vehicle at the film’s disposal to showcase the characters’ personalities.
It does this quickly, easily, and clearly within seconds of the film starting. The film never leaves the audience in any doubt about the characters’ personalities and the characters act in congruence with their characters throughout the whole film.
This is pretty impressive considering how woefully poor mainstream films are at accomplishing this with so many more tools at their disposal. Countless mainstream films, especially recent ones, fail to establish character throughout the entire film no matter how much dialogue, action, interaction, and plot events the film throws at us.
This film only has one basic plot event, which is where the two leads are walking around the vineyard and encounter a mountain lion.
Everything else that happens in the film really only amounts to setting changes from one location to another. The characters have a conversation on the plane. The characters have a conversation in the resort spa while they both get a foot massage. The characters have a conversation at the rehearsal dinner. The characters have a conversation in the male lead’s bedroom. The characters have a conversation on the plane going home.
This is the whole film. The characters have a series of conversations. There is no action at all beyond the mountain lion scene and yet this is one of the most intelligent, challenging, funny, touching, and thought-provoking movies I’ve ever seen.
I’m an action girl. I like blowing things up. I like car chases, fight scenes, and plots that move fast. I like space battles, dangerous aliens, natural disasters, murderous villains, and battle-hardened heroes.
This movie proved that you don’t need any of that to accomplish the goal of making an impression on your audience. You don’t need flashy CGI to get your message across and make the audience think.
At the end of the day, fiction is about the interaction and relationship between people. Car chases, fight scenes, fast-moving plots, space battles, dangerous aliens, natural disasters, murderous villains, and battle-hardened heroes can’t take the place of the basic human connection between characters.
None of us really cares about any of that flashy stuff if we can’t see the characters develop, struggle, and interact with each other in a meaningful way. A satisfying ending comes about when all the set-up throughout the story pays off with a conclusion that is consistent with the characters’ nature. This is the bedrock of fiction—not all the flashy window dressing.
We don’t consume fiction to distract or entertain ourselves. I’ve called out this myth before and I’ll do it again. We consume fiction, either in books or films, to see ourselves reflected in the characters. We want to live vicariously through them by watching them go through the same struggles, conflicts, tragedies, and successes that we go through. We invest in these characters so we can see our humanity playing out in another life. This process makes us feel less alone in our own struggles. We see that someone else is going through the same thing and feeling the same way as a result.
Destination Wedding definitely accomplishes this. Its message is timeless and poignant because it’s a message we all need to hear and learn—embrace the miracle of connecting with another human being and the opportunity to love and appreciate them.
We can all can relate to the two main leads because we all struggle with heartbreak, cynicism, and the urge to protect ourselves by pushing other people away. Neither of the two main leads in this film want to admit that they feel anything for each other, and if they do, they definitely don’t want to get involved with each other. It takes a herculean effort from each of them to get over this hurdle.
The best thing about this film is that the ending doesn’t promise a trite, happily-ever-after picture of the future. Embracing the miracle doesn’t mean everything is going to work out, either for the main characters or for us or anyone else who takes a chance on a relationship. We all know in our guts that happily-ever-after doesn’t exist.
There will be problems. There will be conflicts. There will be times when both partners want to quit. Living alone is so much simpler and requires much less effort. Being in a struggling or failing relationship is much harder than living alone.
The film doesn’t promise that it will be any different. In fact, it leaves the audience with a powerful impression that these people will have more trouble than most by virtue of their problems and personality quirks. The two characters have been chafing each other and annoying each other for the entire film. The audience can’t imagine how their relationship would play out any other way.
That’s the way relationships work in real life, though. We’re all damaged in one way or another. Getting into a relationship with another person will always be fraught with problems in proportion to the mental health of the people involved. Getting oneself mentally healthy before getting into a relationship doesn’t guarantee that the relationship won’t have problems. All relationships have problems.
Embracing the miracle means trying anyway because the payoffs outweigh the drawbacks. None of us was made to live alone. We’re designed to pair-bond.
The cool thing about this movie is that the two main characters are perfect for each other. They’re both equally messed up in all the same ways. That’s why they hit it off. They are probably the only two people on the planet that either of them could connect with in this way because each of them is so quirky, eccentric, and unconventional.
That’s the charm of this movie. The characters’ eccentricities and mental problems are on full display for the audience to see. We can all see how these characters would make absolutely terrible romantic partners. Each of us as the audience would have to be insane to get involved with someone like this.
And yet the two leads are perfect for each other. They match each other exactly in their level of eccentricity and also in how messed up they are mentally. They can talk to each other in ways no one else can. They call each other out for their mental failings and flawed worldviews. They can point out where and how the other person can overcome their problems to get what they want.
They can also relate to each other through their eccentricities. They can both see that the other person is going through a similar struggle. So each character listens to the other more and hears the advice and suggestions better because each character knows that the other person truly understands.
The fact that such a simple, bare, almost skeletal film can accomplish all of this and provoke such deep, insightful commentary on its story is a testament to how effectively this film employs the elements of fiction to communicate with the audience.
The film doesn’t try to be pretentious by inserting a bunch of extra plot elements it doesn’t need. The film doesn’t have to do any of that. It just needs two people talking to each other.
I learned a lot from this film—not just about relationships but about the art of fiction. This film is a masterclass in character development because that is the only element in the whole film.
It’s the only truly essential element in any piece of fiction. That’s what I learned from this film. You don’t need anything else. That on its own is enough.
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