The best rom-coms are a very complicated balancing act. They have to straddle cheese and sincerity, set-ups with unique plot, schmaltz with depth, and humour with heart.
It's a formula that works fine some of the time, badly most of the time, and very rarely greatly: When Harry Met Sally remains one of the best romcoms to date, and that came out over thirty years ago. While The People We Hate at the Wedding hasn't come close to dethroning the 1989 classic, it's still an enjoyable film.
Our central family is never given a surname, which speaks to the speed with which we fly through their introductions. Mom Donna (Allison Janney) has three children, her eldest Eloise (Cynthia Addai-Robinson, Rings of Power) lives in England with her wealthy birth father Henrique (Isaach de Bankolé) but comes to visit her half-siblings Alice (Kristen Bell) and Paul (Ben Platt) in the Midwest every year.
When we catch up with them in the present day, the half-siblings have grown apart, with Eloise living a wealthy dream life in England while Paul and Alice navigate the ups and downs of adulthood. Paul is borderline estranged from his mother, who is recently widowed and – according to her kids – disposed of their father's stuff without even speaking to them about it.
These are the messy, but not unfamiliar, family dynamics that serve as the backdrop for Eloise's wedding, to which she invites her family in hopes of reconciling. Chaos and laughs ensue as Paul tiptoes around his failing relationship and Alice, sleeping with her married boss, finds herself on the cusp of a more genuine relationship with met-cute Dennis (Dustin Milligan, Schitt's Creek).
There are some genuine comedic moments, helped along by the deadpan stylings of Platt and Bell, who butt up against Janney's slightly ditzy but very loving Donna. Robinson does a good job of playing posh English without the cloying airs that often accompany such a role.
Heaps of physical comedy, including a clumsily-choreographed fight (we mean that in a positive way, though, as most of us would look idiotic in a brawl), help push along a film that sometimes threatens to drown in its own over-contrived plots. Luckily, the commitment on part of the actors keeps you from rolling your eyes too far into the back of your head.
This isn't to say The People We Hate at the Wedding is perfect — far from it. There's plenty of melodrama throughout, shoehorned in as a substitute for emotional character development — but with five characters on epiphanic journeys, we can almost forgive the narrative shortcuts.
In a way, The People We Hate at the Wedding is less a rom-com and more a ...non-rom-love-com? It's not about romantic love but about love in general: for our parents, our siblings, and most of all ourselves.
You may not find yourself falling in love with any of the characters, but you'll certainly be entertained by them, and it's hard to resist their charm. There is a sense from the viewer of rooting for the reconciliation, which refreshingly for a rom-com, doesn't feel like a foregone conclusion.
The People We Hate at the Wedding is now available to watch on Prime Video.
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