A new twist on Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner: Our Family Wedding
Posted by The Skyliner on March 17th, 2010Jessicah Peters
Staff Writer
“Our marriage, their wedding” was the constant reminder for Lucia Ramirez (played by America Ferrara) and Marcus Boyd (played by Lance Gross) in Our Family Wedding.
The cultural difference between the characters’ families brought comedy to another level.
Lucia, a drop-out law student, has a strong Mexican family that firmly believes in the traditions of its heritage and the meaning of family.
Marcus Boyd, a black man, was raised by a divorced, “player” type of a father, Brad Boyd, played by Forest Whitaker from The Last King of Scotland and soon-to-be-in-theaters Repo Men.
Regina King plays Angela, Brad’s lawyer and the only woman who is constant in his life.
The plot was predictable; however, there were scenes which caused overwhelming laughter.
Marriage, from Brad Boyd’s point of view, was the worst possible thing for his son to do because Brad’s ex-wife truly never loved him. As Brad sees how Lucia is a friend to his son, he is reminded that “love has no time-limit” and marrying a best friend is what makes a marriage work.
When Lucia decides to finally reveal her new fiancé to her family, her dad, Miguel (played by Carlos Mencia), is disappointed, because she hid Marcus from him.
Miguel owns a towing company and has worked hard for Lucia to attend law school. Lucia puts off telling her dad about dropping out because she is scared of being less than what her family wants. Marcus expects Lucia to be honest about everything and also stand up to her family about their relationship.
Our Family Wedding shows how important it is to get to know a partner’s family before getting engaged. It also shows the value of marriage no matter what differences come between the two families.
One disadvantage of Our Family Wedding is the lack of editing. According to Imdb.com, the runtime is 90 minutes. Some scenes, however, seem too extended and could have been cut.
Although there were some dull parts, Our Family Wedding was overall a hilarious movie. Due to the comedy caused by the stress of planning and cultural differences trying to combine to make the “perfect” wedding, Our Family Wedding is a movie all audience members can enjoy, whatever their heritage.
Our Family Wedding is rated PG-13 for some sexual content and brief strong language.
Tags: Spring 2010, Vol. 110 - Issue 7