Love, Wedding, Marriage

source: Love, Wedding, Marriage

Mandy Moore is a sickly sweet daughter of a divorcing couple that just got married herself. She's also a counselor. She almost loses her own hubby trying to fix her parents. B- Hallmark Grade.

I guess Frank was not thinking about marriage that much ... well not in the context of putting it in the song. That side note that may not make much sense aside, the movie is a comedy and has the flaws/cliches you may expect from a genre piece like this. There is some really cringe worthy dialog and it doesn't really succeed in certain areas either ... but if you don't mind certain things, you can have fun. And while the dialog isn't always ... let's say good, the actors delivering the lines are top notch and many times make this look better than it is ... no pun intended. All have fun making this (you can tell by the bloopers during the end credits too), so why shouldn't you?

This movie is hard to rate as there are good components within a movies structure however ultimately a film's aim called "Love, Wedding, Marriage" should be to help people in society to learn to do the right things in their relationships, however this movie rewards all the terrible decisions that would fail in real life. For the reason above I would seriously NOT recommend this movie to others. Now the story has cohesion & the script is acted out well but the main actress Mandy Moore's character Ava is not only the world's worst marriage counsellor but quite simply the character Ava makes terrible decisions & is rewarded for making them ( in real life these decisions would have made everything worse ). This is not a romantic comedy you could learn from, in fact it would encourage people to be totally irresponsible in the hope things would just work out still. What kind of message is this to give out but being totally irresponsible writing. Now I usually love Mandy Moore's characters in other movies & TV shows as she usually plays someone kind, considerate, empathetic but with some reality in her characters that will have believable flaws but ultimately she has a good heart. Now in this movie her character is a complete childish idiot who apparently has a degree in psychology from a very prodigious college ( don't mention the college as in real life they would be ashamed of this character Ava ) so to have her mess up so bad OK we could put up with but then to reward some terrible behaviour in the movie is disgraceful & disgusting, as the movie should have shown how she messed everything up but then when she finally allowed things to be done by an independent therapist over some time an amicable agreement within the family could have been found from a foundation of honesty all real relationships need. At the end of the movie are any of the characters really better off you have to ask & the answer has to be a resounding NO they are worse off & all their problems are still there as all their underlying issues have not really been addressed at all. So the acting was OK ( as actors did as they were told ) so they lose a star ( -1 ) because Kellan Lutz's acting is not really up to par especially ( though ironically his character in the movie is actually overall a decent human being ), then the storyline not being realistic loses just another star ( -1 ) making this in terms of production value & direction an 8 out of 10 movie, however we then have to be responsible in our rating I believe & state the "message" in the movie of keep doing awful terrible things & everything will work out at the end of the movie is a really dreadful message as I would not my daughter thinking this was in any way educational like you normally get from an actual "good message" rom com. So this takes the movie from a must see "8 star" to a must avoid "4 star" as anything 5 or below simply should not be worth the effort to watch it at all. If they had made a sequel to this movie & actually laid out this movies story first to any real life marriage psychologist I think they would have had to point out how every couple in this movie would most likely end up heart broken & alone. Unless of course they actually recognised the dreadful mistakes they had made & actually started all acting like decent human beings & started being really honest with themselves & their partners plus family. As only then could this movie have any kind of redemption as the ending of this first movie really is not a good plot point if you actually want to be helping real people find real life marriage help. When you are telling a story like this you have to ask yourself what are the morals to the tale, as the answer is actually it is mostly immoral then why put that out there ( all that negativity ) as you could literally encourage someone to ruin their life or others lives because they are misguided enough to believe in your fantasy.

We found this movie on Netflix streaming movies. We like Mandy Moore, she stars here as a psychotherapist who has to try to fix up the torn relationship of her parents, seeming to want a divorce after 30 years of marriage. Overall it comes across as a bit disjointed, especially with some of the real goofy scenes, but overall is worth a watch for light entertainment. I also want to mention how disjointed the story's location seems. We learn early that the newlyweds met when she was getting her PhD at Berkeley and he was working in wine-making in the Napa Valley. But the whole movie is set and filmed in the New Orleans area and a plantation home on the Mississippi River, with no hint of how they ended up there. It had me puzzled. Mandy Moore is Ava, the optimistic therapist, her young husband is Kellan Lutz as Charlie. Ava's dad is James Brolin as Bradley, who suddenly decides he will begin to show his "Jewness", and Jane Seymour as Betty is her mother. Her sister in Jessica Szohr as Shelby, my favorite character in this movie. So mom finds out about a very brief affair Charlie had in London some 25 years earlier when they were briefly separated and now she wants a divorce. Ava has to figure out how to make them realize that they really do love each other and want to stay together. A story with many good possibilities but most of them were wasted.

23 November 2017. The light-weight family comedy involves a newly married marriage counselor who finds herself attempting to fix her parents' impending divorce. This feel good movie succeeds on the entertainment level though it's fluffy presentation in the vein of What About Bob? (1991) or Anger Management (2003) or even the more similar Prime (2005), sort of reduces the qualitative polish of the movie by not taking much risk in its depiction of serious counseling nor hard-edge drama. Of interest is Julia Roberts' brief presence as a counselor's voice only and the Buffy The Vampire Slayer television series (1997-2003) a real life couple as a couple as a cameo in this movie, Alyson Hannigan and Alexis Denisof. While not directly relatable, other family comedy, drama that might have more of a memorable impact include Cameron Diaz In Her Shoes (2005), Uptown Girls (2003), My Best Friend's Wedding (1997), Georgia Rule (2007) or The Women (2008).

While this film seemed to garner ratings from most reviewers at either one end of the scale or the other, it was very middle of the road for me. I didn't think it was horrible, but it was also far from great. What disappointed me the most, were the performances by those you would have expected to be the best. James Brolin and Jane Seymour turned in B-rated performances at best, in my opinion. Mandy Moore did okay, but certainly wasn't a shining star. I will allow that the material she had to work with didn't do a lot for her. That said, the material wasn't any better for Kellan Lutz or Jessica Szohr, yet they turned in very credible, authentic, engaging performances. They were the only two who made it worth hanging in there through the entire film. In fact, I'll go out on a limb and say this is one of the better performances I've seen from Kellan Lutz to date. Bottom line, if you don't expect a lot from it and aren't paying much to watch it, you probably won't feel cheated. Otherwise, you may prefer to choose something else to watch.

This film has some of the most outrageous characters. I understand trying to be funny, but some of these people, like the fitness lady, the shrink, the Polish girlfriend and even the mom were just too ridiculous. There was talk about sex in a very awkward (makes you cringe kind of ) way. Mandy's character was too shallow and blind. I could go on. There really wasn't even one scene where I smiled or connected with, and that's difficult, considering that I LOVE romance and chick flicks. Do yourself a favor and skip this one, unless you really enjoy irrational, crazy, thinking they are so funny, characters.

Love Wedding Marriage. The title of the movie had me thinking some girl would find love, then get married. In the first 2 minutes she was that. As soon as she started speaking, I could tell I wasn't going to like it. Ava (Mandy Moore) is a control freak, who went to extremes and basically wrecked her marriage to try and save someone else's. Ava of course is a marriage counselor, which when displayed didn't seem like her practice was great. The story line sort of sucked as with some of the acting mostly on Mandy Moore's side of things. Kellan Lutz looks amazing and I thought his acting was much better than I'd seen. The whole time I yawned through this = Boring.

I like light romance comedies, but what I found most unlikable about this particular movie was Mandy Moore's character's very one-sided personality. She's been in too many movies where her characters have been irritating, one-sided, primadonna types. It's unfortunate given that she is so attractive. It's incredibly irritating to see a protagonist force her vision of what her parent's marriage should be. It was pounded again and again, just irritating, and there was no depth to it such as her showing a painful side as to why she needs to 'fix' things (ie some sense of childhood neglect), nor did it show her maturing into someone who wants their parents to be happy in their own way, without somebody, society, etc telling them what they 'should' be happy with. Who's to say anybody can tell another what makes them happy? Can't a couple go their separate ways for a few days or months, to discover their individual selves? I was more pleased with Jane Seymour's character to experience a life, grow, do new things, travel, etc apart from being some wife-servant. At least with Mandy Moore's character, she could have had some evolution in her efforts (not just that last second fake pill overdose shenanigan to manipulate her parents), to be more altruistic instead of dominating/manipulating. The conflict with the husband regarding the manipulation was well played. Mandy's character manipulates a fake life-and-death situation to deceive his mother into not wanting to be on her own for 6 months out of her life for once. Mandy's husband called her out on this blatant manipulation and I felt that was the most honest part of the movie, how shallow, selfish the manipulation was, to judge for other people what 'should' make them happy, that it involves some stereotype instead of personal discovery/independence. The resolution of the conflict came out of nowhere. The dialogue started with Mandy's character trying to apologize, but was interrupted, as if an apology or personal change/growth was completely unnecessary. The things the husband wanted from the wife (to accept, in him) was actually nothing to do with why he was angry in the first place. She gets interrupted from her apology, he asks to be accepted, they kiss, end credits. She never got the chance to apologize and so that almost says that it was unnecessary, superficial. Messages like that are dangerous. Even with the movie being a comedy. I found Mandy's character overall annoying/irritating and given that she felt no remorse for manipulating her parents, that she had no soul. I don't think it was Ms. Moore's fault, as that has more to do with the script and directing, hinting at emotion, providing pause, reflection, etc that the director simply did not provide. These romantic comedies that have such absurd conflict only to end in even more absurd resolution are ultimately dangerous stories of fantasy that even a lighthearted audience should not see. It only can give terrible impressions in a relationship, bad example, and make relationships more painful and illusive. At least a comedy could teach the viewers something. There was no lesson of compromise, of heart-felt communication, of acceptance, of change, of growth, etc - the conflict was sudden and the resolution was even more sudden. Normally I don't mind watching rom-coms multiple times, but i don't think this is enjoyable to watch again. The characters were too irritating to enjoy. It reminds me of the irritation I felt with another Mandy Moore movie, License to Wed, where the conflict felt so incredibly contrived/out-of-nowhere and the helplessness of the characters (to augment the ridiculous conflict) just made it really annoying. I actually liked her better in Swinging With The Finkels, even though in that movie I found the shallow, apathetic and loyalty-less husband quite irritating.