Births, Deaths & Marriages

Dean doesn't show up for his own wedding leaving Sinead pissed off but this is overshadowed by grandma dying later the same day meanwhile, Katherine has had a contraction. Set over 2 days in 1994, Births, Deaths & Marriages is about a mostly female Upper Hutt family coping with these situations. These goings-on are recorded on a home-video camera by Aidan who was originally supposed to film the wedding.

Births, Deaths & Marriages is a bunch of humourous short set-pieces often set in claustrophobic locations such as the bathroom. We also see recognisable Kiwi attitudes and reactions, familiar from our friends, relatives and possibly ourselves. The quality of the humour is highly variable, with some of the exchanges much better than others. The exchanges between the very pregnant Katherine and her husband Ari over Irish wakes versus Maori tangi and a lecture on stages of grief are the standouts. On the other hand, there were a number of scenes and minor characters that could have been eliminated to improve the film. The way the scenes were linked by a blank screen and out of focus bits while the soundtrack continued also got irritating. And it seemed odd that on day 2 the bride was still in the bath.

If I had been trapped in that house with that family, I would have grabbed some of the wedding food, climbed out of the window and headed for Wellington.

Stuff had a more positive review.

🎥

Ian's rating 2/5 Anne's rating 2/5