Movie Review - A Simple Wedding (Pride Month)

This film got a limited, theatrical release just before the coronavirus shut down all theaters. As it makes its way to home video, it's definitely a film to spotlight for Pride Month, the month of June, which commemorates the gay rights movement in the United States and LGBTQ rights in the U.S. in general. Written and directed by Sara Zandieh in her feature debut, the film is a cross-cultural and inter-generational look at loving relationships in the present era. It operates like a typical, romantic comedy with some notable exceptions. First off, it's centered around an Iranian-American woman and there aren't many films with an Iranian-American woman as the lead. It's rare. Secondly, this film also has a bisexual man as the co-lead. It's also rare that a rom-com will feature a bisexual man, or it's rare that any film will feature a bisexual person where his or her bisexuality isn't an issue that leads to drama or particularly to tragedy.

Tara Grammy stars as Nousha Husseini, a Persian woman living in Los Angeles. She's a fairly successful, Millennial. She works as an attorney at a pretty good, law firm. She grew up in Orange County, which has a large Asian population and a significant Muslim population. Being Persian, Nousha and her family fit in the area. We don't delve too much into her Persian heritage or that of her family. She can speak Farsi with her family, but she seems mostly Americanized or Westernized. We never see her practicing the Islamic faith for example. She has a very liberal and progressive point of view, politically, which probably wouldn't jive with a lot of the tenets of Islam, but her family doesn't seem to be too bothered by her lifestyle.

The only thing her parents want is for her to marry. Their hope is also that she marries a professional man, one who is wealthy or has a good, steady job like a doctor or lawyer. When it comes to children of parents from either the Middle East or Southeast Asia, this is a common story line. This was even the premise of Princess Jasmine's plight in Disney's Aladdin (1992). Recent films like Meet the Patels (2015) and The Big Sick (2017) have reversed the gender of the child in question, but children of Middle Eastern or Southeast Asian parents frequently face this issue. Zandieh's film is an attempt to subvert that frequent issue and be more progressive. Yes, it's probably more progressive than any aforementioned film and even non-mentioned films, but how much it subverts the issue is probably arguable, if at all.

Christopher O'Shea (Madam Secretary and Patriots Day) co-stars as Alex Talbot, a male feminist, conceptual artist, DJ and political activist for LGBTQ causes. Even though he doesn't like labels, most might consider him bisexual or just queer. He's attracted to both women and men. Right now, he's attracted to Nousha. His courtship with Nousha is very quick, but he falls in love fast and she in return. It makes his actions later a bit odd, especially since he seems like a very non-traditional person. Because of his love for Nousha, he's willing to try to ingratiate himself into her family.

The film makes a big deal out of Alex meeting Nousha's parents. One thinks the confrontation and ensuing hijinks would be akin to Ben Stiller and Robert De Niro in Meet the Parents (2000). Where Zandieh's film falls is somewhere just slightly below My Big Fat Greek Wedding (2002). Given what Zandieh is trying, it doesn't seem like her intention was ever to garner the big and bold laughs of that 2002 hit comedy, which is fine.

What possibly isn't fine is the lack of subversion. As mentioned, the film sets up this ultra-traditional idea that children of immigrants, especially immigrants from the Middle East or Southeast Asia, are pressured into marriage. At one point, Nousha and Alex say that they think of marriage as a stifling and oppressing institution. They meet over a protest against patriarchy from which marriage is an outgrowth. It's clear that they don't want it. However, Nousha's family strongly pressures them into it. The comedy then comes from that tension between Nousha and Alex versus Nousha's family. The tension is mild and a bit awkward but not overly compelling. The film is more light and fluffy in that regard, not really leaning into that tension.

It's probably not surprising given the light and fluffy tone, but the more progressive path would be to subvert that expectation of Nousha and Alex engaging in that institution or somehow getting out of it or resisting it despite what Nousha's family insists. The film feels like it's going to do that, but it backslides, basically concluding that the institution is the solution and is the ultimate answer. Not only is that not a subversion, it's seemingly a betrayal of who Nousha and Alex seemingly are.

Oscar-nominee Shohreh Aghdashloo (House of Sand and Fog) and Rita Wilson (Runaway Bride and Sleepless in Seattle) round out the cast as the mothers of the bride and groom respectively. Wilson in fact plays Maggie Baker, the mother to Alex. She's divorced from Alex's father who came out as gay. She has a late-in-life romance with the uncle to Nousha, a man named Saman, played by Maz Jobrani. Her relationship with her ex-husband and Saman is more compelling than that of Nousha and Alex, if only because there's more drama there. It almost makes me wish the film were more about Maggie and Saman.

Rated TV-14.

Running Time: 1 hr. and 28 mins.

Available on VOD and DVD.