Filed under: Reviews
While the plot is predictable, South Africa's 'White Wedding' is still an entertaining comedic film that audiences will find universally appealing.
Directed by Jann Turner, the premise looks to be another variation of 'The Hangover,' where the groom is out of town days before his wedding and gets into all sorts of shenanigans. Instead of a Las Vegas setting, drugs and booze, the story is a buddy road flick with far-fetched slapstick sequences one can help but laugh at its implausibilites.
With his wedding arriving in a few days, Elvis (played by Kenneth Nkosi) is out of town in Durban and has to travel 1,800 kilometers to get to his bride, Ayanda (played by Zandile Msutwana). Going over to pick up his best man Tumi (played by Rapulana Seiphemo), Elvis is startled when he finds Tumi in bed with three lovely naked ladies. Maintaining his faithfulness to Ayanda, Elvis elects to stay focus on the wedding nuptials and the two set their sights to Cape Town.
Thus, the road trip begins, and almost immediately things take a turn for the worse when several mishaps occur and both bride, who's ex also arrives on the scene, and groom start to question their commitment towards one another.
Adding to the mix is the white British female doctor (played by Jodie Whittaker), who, having just broken off her engagement and pissed off with her best friend, decides to hitchhike her way to the airport and catches a ride with the two South Africans. Two black men and a white woman traveling together in a car in a post-Apartheid country will still set off alarms.
Once the road trip, it's a barrel of laughs from one scene to the next, and while this is a foreign film, with no marketable names that folks will recognized, each of the actors do a satisfying job of keep you entertained. With a bountiful landscape of South Africa as an invisible character to the film, 'White Wedding' is a dramedy that's beautiful shot, unpretentious and rather witty.