Rating: 
Summary: A Keeper!
Review: Poor Muriel has grown up down-trodden by her family and friends. She's a little on the slow side, a mouth breather, and tacky. She retreats into ABBA songs when life gets overwhelming. Her ultimate dream is to get married, to have a big wedding and be a princess (if only for a day). Unfortunately, she's *Muriel*. In a surprising turn of events, Muriel reinvents herself as "Mariel," leaves home, and shows 'em all. Along the way she learns what's really important in life.
Quite charming, "Muriel's Wedding" isn't a laugh fest it's sometimes written up to be. While hilarious in parts, this movie has serious story lines to it that are kept from making the overall movie a depressing event by punches of quirkiness. (There's a scene where Muriel is speaking to a handsome male swimmer that's hysterical just because of her facial movements).
Highly recommended.
Rating: 
Summary: Fairly disjointed adolescent movie making
Review: to be fair, so i saw this on the heels of watching "goodfellas", perhaps one of the best directed films in recent memory. i would say if you are a person who gets easily absorbed in character as opposed to technique, than you may enjoy this movie. though it need be said that some of the characters are so highly clichéd (the circle of girlfriends...for example) that it might be hard to appreciate their subtleties if one is not from Australia.
For me, this genre (pathetic, black socio-familial comedy) was accomplished better with films like "welcome to the dollhouse", "happiness", and "life is sweet". The movie was too broad in plot and setting and very hackneyed in its transitions. (as in when the heroine runs off with her friend at the end). And the device of her mother's death as a transition point was done ever so lamely. She just wanders around in a daze and then...poof...wakes up.
Not a film geek flick by any stretch. But my girlfriend loves it.
Rating: 
Summary: Muriel--a classic character
Review: Have you watched this movie and feel as though Muriel is a real person lurking around somewhere? Maybe even inside yourself.
THis movie is hilarious and touching. Everyone in the movie is a tragic, really. But that's okay. THey're just human. Muriel does make us want to laugh and cry with her. Toni Colette is a great actress--I hope she takes over USA, which she's starting to with her Oscar nomination in "The Sixth Sense". Muriel's mom depressed the hell out of me--her husband cheating on her, no one helping her, and eventually she loses her mind and kills herself. She was the most real character next to Muriel. Great performance.
Every scene is a favorite. I can't stop watching it.
Rating:
Summary: An Australian Classic
Review: In the tradition of Strictly Ballroom and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Muriel's Wedding continues the idiosyncratic, character driven films of 90's Australia. On the surface Muriel's Wedding is a comedy but it is a comedy with a sharp edge and a black underbelly. Toni Collette is superb as the frumpy and dreamy Muriel Heslop. With a burning ambition to be wedded and a passion and joy for ABBA music, she takes us on a quest to eventual self-acceptance and self-respect. Along the way we get to laugh with her, cry with her and above all we are privileged to share her love for life.
Featuring a superb support cast (Bill Hunter, Jeannie Drynan - superb as Muriel's tragic mum, Rachel Griffiths and Sophie Lee)it is hard to fault any performance except for the slightly wooden Daniel La Paine. PJ Hogan directs with a love for his characters and an understanding and appreciation of suburban backwater 1990's Australia. Standout scenes include the ABBA contest, Muriel's attempt at being seduced on a beanbag and any scene featuring the superb Jeannie Drynan as Muriel's mum. Muriel's journey from Porpoise Spit to the bright lights of Sydney are a journey many of us have made in many ways and and on many personal levels. In Muriel we have a heroine that we can love and laugh with. It is great to see the wonderful Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths go on to greater Hollywood success with The Sixth Sense and The Other Sister. A fine example of PJ Hogan's work before directing My Best Friend's Wedding. You're wonderful Muriel!
Rating:
Summary: Cheerer-upper
Review: Need to have your self-esteem boosted? Just watch this movie! Muriel's a great character-truly original, someone we can all relate to. This movie was fun and uplifting.
Rating:
Summary: I can't forget this movie
Review: The other day I went to see Shaft and I spent the entire movie trying to figure out who the bartender was. I then spent the last week trying to figure out that actress and it turned out to be Toni Collette from this movie.
This movie came out at the same time as Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and instead of the relatively light romp through the outback, this is a movie about pathetic striving in a cruel nasty world. Muriel is obnoxious and overbearing and her dreams are idiotic (get married to anyone - doesn't matter who) and her family and friends are all idiots, but there's something about her that you love, and as she does one dumb thing after another you know that she will eventually come around and become a decent person, or at least better than the friends she leaves back in Porpoise Spit.
Rachel Griffith is also great as Muriel's best friend who gets cancer halfway through the movie. This is a rather odd comedy since it gives you suicide, cancer, false friends, illegal immigrants, and utter complete rejection. But then again Tragedy is funny if you look at it the right way. Muriel never lets herself become jaded or bitter throughout the entire movie and when she's unintentionally cruel she's still human enough to learn from her mistakes.
Oh yeah, you'll probably like Abba for awhile after you watch this movie. It's an unfortunate byproduct.
Rating:
Summary: Truly a tragi-comedy
Review: Yes, Muriel's Wedding has its comic moments, some of them wonderful, but I found this to be a deeply sad and disturbing movie, not because it's about a "dysfunctional family" and an duckling-to-swan transformation, but because it chronicles so well the profound loneliness that can arise from a lack of true empathy and appreciation within one's family. Collette is an excellent actress and vividly portrays not only Muriel's desperate, self-centered, and mis-guided search for love and acknowledgement, but also her usually hidden and even unconscious pain. I recommend this movie highly, but I also warn that more sensitive viewers may be caught off-guard by the powerful undercurrent of despair waiting just behind the jokes.
