Rating: 
Summary: A comedy with a bit of cruelty
Review: Although I love this film, I can't really say it's a comedy. There is a lot of cruelty here, not just from the stuck up girls who reject Muriel, but also from her father. Muriel's family life is pretty sad, and it's not all resolved with a nice red bow at the end. If anything, there are two big tragedies that make this a rollercoaster film. Sure, the funny scenes are hilarious (as in, when Muriel makes out while Rhonda is, um, busy) but the sad parts are truly depressing.All that said, Toni Collette is just marvelous as poor, pathetic Muriel, who wants her life to be as grand as an ABBA song, and who, in the end, does become a batter, happier person.
Rating: 
Summary: My Favorite Film
Review: I was recently asked on a survey what movie was my all-time favorite. Without hesitation, I had to say MURIEL'S WEDDING! Although I'm an American male, I identified with the Aussie Muriel completely. The movie is unashamedly Australian, and yet draws from themes that are so universal -- archetypal, I would even say -- the need to feel that you have a purpose on this planet, finding your way in the world, and doing what you feel is right in the face of all other expectations. And it allowed me to listen to my old ABBA favorites without worrying any longer what anyone else thought. Muriel is a complete dork, but you will fall in love with her in spite of yourself -- or perhaps because you will recognize in Muriel the dork that is yourself and everyone else, in spite of what we pretend to be.
Rating:
Summary: Charming and Quirky
Review: How does one not love Muriel in this. Toni Collette plays the sweet good-hearted chunky chick to perfection in this.This movies serves its purpose gracefully. A+
Rating: 
Summary: Muriel's dysfunctional life
Review: This film was first brought to my attention in a crash course on Australian films. I have a lot of trouble calling this a comedy because of the tragic overtones. In a classical sense it is a comedy because it starts out with a conflict and ends happily. Overall the tragic and sad scenes overwhelms the comic aspects. Muriel's family could hardly be any more dysfunctional if they tried and for much of the movie Muriel's main obsession is to get married and after she does, she realizes how silly it was. I like her confronting her family and fake friends, but I would have trouble recomending this movie to many people. Yes there are many comic scenes like Muriel's mother getting tired of telling her son to mow the backyard and torching it, but overall it isn't the comedy it claims to be.
Rating:
Summary: Quirky and Charming!
Review: This is one of my favorite movies of all time! Toni Colette is wonderful as the akward and downcast Muriel. The movie is about Muriel's search for love and acceptance, and it is alternately hilarious and touchingly sad. However, it isn't a sentimental "chick flick". My husband liked it too!
Rating:
Summary: ABBA bit on the strange side!
Review: DID ANYONE ELSE FIND THIS MOVIE A BIT ODD AND DISJOINTED? Well, despite it's "weirdness" it IS a somewhat entertaining film - hysterical even, at times, but certainly not a non-stop laugh riot all the way through. The ha-ha's are definitely sporadic! This is the story of Muriel, a rather pudgey, insecure 22 year old from Porpoise Spit, Australia who has this all-consuming passion for weddings and Abba music from the seventies. She believes that if only she got married she would "Be Someone" and then she'd "show" all those people who don't believe she'll ever amount to anything - (which includes her father who constantly puts her down, and that group of snotty girls who want to ditch her for being "uncool"). It turns out though, that after Muriel attains that long-awaited walk down the aisle, she discovers she really WAS "someone" all along. Like I said; the movie is weird, disjointed, funny in parts, sort of interesting, -well, why don't you watch it, and decide for yourself!
Rating:
Summary: Terrific comedy-drama from Australia
Review: Life should be as wonderful as an ABBA song. Unfortunately for Muriel Heslop (Toni Collette) it's not. Chunky, disliked by her so-called friends ("You bring us down"), stuck in the not-happening town of Porpoise Spit, in a family where her father calls everyone "useless" and her mother seems lost in depression, Muriel can only escape to her room and listen to her favorite group, ABBA (their infectious, dance-pop hits permeate the soundtrack). A secretarial school reject, Muriel has but a single goal in life: marriage. "I'm going to get married and I'm going to be a success," she tells her mother, right before stealing the family's money and blowing it on a vacation with her "friends" who did not invite her, and are shocked and angered that she's followed them. She doesn't find a husband on the trip, but she is reunited with Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths), a plucky high school acquaintance, and the two strike up a real friendship. Written and directed by P.J. Hogan (a name to watch), "Muriel's Wedding" seesaws rapidly between comedy and tragedy. The film won Australia's equivalent of our Best Picture Oscar. And Toni Collette (who reportedly gained over 40 pounds for the role) picked up their Best Actress award. (Funny how Robert De Niro's weight-gain for "Raging Bull" was so much more publicized and admired.) I really liked how Muriel transforms herself here. Both on the inside and outside, she just gets more beautiful as the film progresses to it's strong conclusion.
Rating: 
Summary: Good Story - Not So Good Film
Review: Muriel Heslop is an unhappy Abba fan who is a bit on the plump side, unemployed and put down a lot by her vile "friends" and her even viler father. Add to that she has no self-motivation and is a selfish, self-obsessed, lying thief who, on gaining self-confidence deserts her one true friend, Rhonda, at a time when she needs her most and forgets all about her loving mother who is just as unhappy as Muriel herself once was. Then of course Miss. Muriel does something very silly purely so she can get hitched. And this is someone we're supposed to have sympathy with. OK, so Muriel redeems herself in the end but it is not just the main character I disliked, it was also the way the film never really seems to know what it's doing. Just when it seems to be getting somewhere with the story and the character development it is all cut short by a swift change into a different situation; we just never seem to know where Muriel is in her self-discovery. The film has managed to get away with such discrepancies mainly because it tackles a subject such as low self-worth so it is somewhat easier to think highly of it; but I am afraid I just can't agree. It is certainly worthy subject matter it just isn't well done here. The only reason I'm giving it three stars instead of two is because it does get the basic message across and it is something to educate impressionable youngsters about how really vicious people like Muriel's father and "friends" are dispicable and the effect callous cruelty can have on people.
Rating:
Summary: Good Story - Not So Good Film
Review: Muriel Heslop is an unhappy Abba fan who is a bit on the plump side, unemployed and put down a lot by her vile "friends" and her even viler father. Add to that she is a selfish, self-obsessed, lying thief who, on gaining self-confidence deserts her one true friend, Rhonda, at a time when she needs her most and forgets all about her loving mother who is just as unhappy as Muriel herself once was. Then of course Miss. Muriel does something very silly purely so she can get hitched. And this is someone we're supposed to have sympathy with. OK, so Muriel redeems herself in the end but it is not just the main character I disliked, it was also the way the film never really seems to know what it's doing. Just when it seems to be getting somewhere with the story and the character development it is all cut short by a swift change into a different situation; we just never seem to know where Muriel is in her self-discovery. The film has managed to get away with such discrepancies mainly because it tackles a subject such as low self-worth so it is somewhat easier to think highly of it; but I am afraid I just can't agree. It is certainly worthy subject matter it just isn't well done here. The only reason I'm giving it three stars instead of two is because it does get the basic message across and it is something to educate impressionable youngsters about how really vicious people like Muriel's father and "friends" really are dispicable and the effect callous cruelty can have on people.
Rating:
Summary: This is the best movie ever
Review: I love this movie. I laughed, I cried. They cannot make a better movie.
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