I Want To Get Married (U.S. 2011)

The Gist:

It's six days before the 2008 presidential elections. In California this includes voting on Prop 8 which will decide the fate of marriage equality in the state. Against that backdrop we have a nerdy man who despite being successful in business, friends, and home, is unsuccessful in love and so decides he wants to get married. 

Also his mother leaves his father, the nerdy guy has to decide if he wants to betray his community to make money, and a drag queen (playing a woman?) repeatedly sings a terrible song.

Comments:

Some movies are so bad that they swing around the scale back into being good or at least worth watching. This is not an example of that. It's just bad. 

The most obvious of the issues is Matthew Montgomery's acting. I normally like him, but here he either decided or was directed to play his socially inept nerd role with spastic tics, OCD quirks, and barely comprehensible mumbling that makes Jerry Lewis at his most exaggerated seem subdued. His acting is so bizarre that it nearly distracts from the movies other problems. Nearly but not quite. 

His character of a highly awkward adult who can barely speak is somehow also supposed to be a dynamic successful business owner which strains credibility. Aside from his contradictory character, the other roles are so thin as to barely exist. His story and that of his parents (conservative wife leaves her husband and ends up stuck in a casino becoming friends with a singer that coincidentally her gay son adores) are so disparate they don't really work together. The movie can't seem to decide what it wants to be. The songs, or rather the singular song that's repeated over and over again, is terrible. 

The very basic idea of a small portion of the movie, a person has to decide what is more important: money or integrity should have been enough for a good story, but with all the problems going on it never had a chance. 

Women:

Yes

People of Color:

Yes, by way of a single minor Chinese character that is arguably racist. Embarrassingly so. 

Gratuitous nudity:

No

• Director: William Clift
• Writer: William Clift
• Actors: Matthew Montgomery, Rebecca Wright, Mathew Martin 
• 107 min
• IMDB