In the opening scenes of “The Wedding Guest,” we observe as a
mysterious British Muslim man named Jay (“Lion” star Dev Patel) makes his way
from the UK to Pakistan. We’re with him as he rents two different cars, then
purchases a couple guns, duct tape, and zip ties. It’s a strange collection of
supplies that seem all the stranger once we figure out he’s on his way to a
wedding celebration.
Jay arrives
while final preparations are still underway, and we see him skulk around the
proceedings, avoiding being seen by the bride, Samira (Indian actress Radhika Apte), and keeping his distance from the wedding party.
Gradually, we realize that he plans to abduct the bride-to-be on the eve of her
nuptials. The hows and why of his plot are only
gradually revealed to us.
Director
Michael Winterbottom is a chameleonic filmmaker, adapting to a variety of
genres over the course of a prolific career that has taken him from political
documentaries (“The Shock Doctrine”) to comedy (“The Trip” and its two
sequels). Working from his own bare-bones script, his latest takes the shape of
a romantic thriller, though streamlined to a fault. Dialogue is sparse, while
character motivations and backstory are often frustratingly murky.
With so much
left ambiguous, much of the responsibility falls to the actors to carry us
through on sheer charisma alone, and the film’s stars do an admirable job. As
their journey continues, Jay and Samira grow closer to one another, and they
become a team of sorts as they attempt to escape the notice of local
authorities. While the locations add a nice texture to the film, there’s no
real sense of what kind of threat Jay and Samira face as they tear through city
after city, journeying from Mumbai to Delhi and Goa.
As a
performer, Patel (also acting as the film’s producer) has charisma to spare.
He’s made a career playing breezily affable characters, so seeing him play the
stoic international man of mystery is a nice change of pace. It’s a bona fide
movie star performance. Apte invests her character
with a cool, quiet intelligence. It’s obvious that the runaway bride holds much
more power than at first appears, but we never learn enough about her or her
life in Pakistan. As a character Samira remains maddeningly enigmatic, which is
disappointing considering that Winterbottom’s screenplay seeks to explore
female agency and power dynamics in a culture that tends to provide its women
with few options.
But our
investment in the plight of Jay and Samira requires more than the promise of
potential double crosses to latch onto such a flimsy narrative. Plus it’s tough
to get fully on board with any romance that begins with one partner holding a
gun to the other’s head. A thriller that’s surprisingly low on thrills, even
strong performances from its two leads can’t turn “The Wedding Guest” into an
event worth the trouble of attending.
This article appears in Mar 13-19, 2019.
