Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		3.0
Audio		2.5
Extras		0.0
Overall		2.5

Betsy's Wedding Blu-ray Movie Review

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Reviewed by Martin Liebman April 29, 2011

This is a great day.

In celebration of the Royal Wedding -- it's the event of a lifetime that's not to be missed, of course, tune in dark and early at oh-sleep-hundred or be square -- here's a review of a movie about a wedding that doesn't go quite as smoothly as the gazillion-dollar/pound/euro/whatever ceremony for the ages that's got all the world abuzz (what a faaaabulous dress she's got on! Quick! Where's that lipreader!) but that's instead got all the hallmarks of the sort of stuff that make up the, comparatively speaking, dull everyday weddings that neither William nor Kate would ever dream of attending, let alone dream of at all. Or, this review of Betsy's Wedding on this most gloriously cherished day of days could just be a coincidence...nah. Royalty? Nope. Pomp and circumstance? No way. Prim and proper? Not with this couple. The kiss on the balcony in front of millions of adoring subjects? Only if movie audiences count. And if the whole balcony thing can be taken out of the equation. Betsy's Wedding might not be a storybook affair, but it's a charming little misadventure of awkwardness and follies that will give Royal-ity TV a run for its money every time.

Big news!

Betsy Hopper (Molly Ringwald) and her boyfriend Jake Lovell (Dylan Walsh) have a big announcement to make: they're getting married (surprise!). Both families are filled with joy and thrilled with the prospects of throwing a lavish ceremony, but there's only one problem: Betsy and Jake want a really low key affair. Leave out any trace of religion and mention of God, and throw out anything deemed even remotely "conventional," please. Their wishes are not their parents's command, though. Betsy's daddy, a down-on-his luck builder named Eddie (Alan Alda), has just had an investor walk away from a halfway completed project and doesn't have the cash on hand to splurge on the ceremony, but darn it if he's going to let Jake's dad Harry (Nicolas Coster) show him up. Slick Hopper family member Oscar (Joe Pesci) conjures up three hundred grand to help Eddie with the construction project and secure the funds he needs for the wedding, but with that kind of money comes an additional price Eddie may not be willing to pay. Meanwhile, the new crooked overseers at the construction project send out the young Stevie Dee (Anthony LaPaglia) to keep watch over things, and he finds himself head over heels for Eddie's other daughter Connie (Ally Sheedy) who just so happens to be the one kind of person a guy in Stevie's line of work really shouldn't date. Will all the hoopla surrounding the wedding be enough to tear it down, or can true love -- no matter what kind of foundation it's built on -- withstand all?

Betsy's Wedding is one of those teaser title movies that's not really about Betsy and her wedding but instead the misadventures that play out around the periphery, the stories behind the story that're the real stories and not the story the title suggests. That periphery is a rich landscape dotted with interesting characters and side stories that really push the title event into the background, usurping the reception hall (or tent, as the case may be) dance floor and showing up the happy couple with every new move. Whether shady business deals gone bad, burgeoning romances between two unlikely people, or the showmanship that boils down to the "mine (bank account)'s bigger than yours" tough guy mumbo jumbo, it's the other goings-on that truly define the movie, all simply byproducts of Betsy and her wedding and not really an integral part of it, except, of course, for that little detail about who's paying for what and who knows a guy who has a friend whose brother's neighbor's nephew's best friend's grandson knows this guy who can get a quality outdoor tent for half of what that overpriced wedding store's going to charge for their battered rental unit. Nope, don't want that thing. Let Vinny over there take care of it whydontcha? Guaranteed leakproof.

It's the cast for which most will likely want to catch Betsy's Wedding at some point or another. There's more stars in this thing than there are dots up in the heavens on a smoggy Los Angeles night (well, OK, they're there, just not there, right?), and while the cast might not have the same sort of splendor as other star-studded affairs, this one's rock-solid if late 1980s/early 1990s name power is the criteria. Alan Alda is brilliant in his usual Alan Alda kind of way, smiling through the whole thing and playing his part with a reserved energy, giving the appearance of a balanced but imperfect man who struggles with his deeper thoughts and emotions -- as evidenced by his dreams and hallucinations -- but who nevertheless exists on an even keel and takes everything in stride, whether it's a sudden wedding announcement, a construction project gone awry, or figuring out a bad business deal. Alda's got that charismatic but somehow reserved charm down to a science in this movie, and he's the film's greatest asset. Eighties queen Molly Ringwald handles Betsy -- who's more or less a second fiddle -- with ease, pulling off the part of a girl who's anything but conventional with an unmistakable grace that will endear the character into the hearts of audiences every time, no matter how out on the fringe she might sometimes appear to be. The rest of the cast is fantastic, too; names like LaPaglia, Pesci, O'Hara, and Sheedy give the movie the sort of marquee promotional material for which most every film dreams, and fortunately for Betsy's Wedding they're all on top of their games and integral to the plot, too, not simply providing a name to slap onto a lobby poster and showing up just long enough for a credit and a payday.

Betsy's Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Betsy's Wedding isn't a glamorous affair in high definition, but all things considered the transfer could be worse. The image is quite the dirty sort at its open, and while the sheer number of pops and scratches and splotches and other forms of print anomalies reduce after a heavy opening act, the transfer is consistently littered with debris. Colors are clearly faded, but brighter shades of red, for instance, still manage some pizazz. Detail is decent enough, nothing special by any means but serviceably steady and stable. Flesh tones are a little warm, and blacks are decent. There's just enough background blocking to constitute an eyesore at a few junctures, but the image is otherwise pleasantly free of any major compression issues. Finally, Mill Creek's Blu-ray retains a layer of grain that gives the image a nicely filmic, if still somewhat dated and worn, appearance.

Betsy's Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Betsy's Wedding is hamstrung, but not ruined, by a crunchy DTS-HD MA 2.0 lossless soundtrack. This mix seems always wanting for more space than is afforded to it; despite the absence of true clarity, the track oftentimes spills way over into the sides and away from the center speaker in an effort to make itself a bit more attractive to the listener, even if the results are, at best, mushy. Dialogue follows suit, sometimes straying a bit from the center, resultantly sounding a little off-kilter. Ambience isn't bad, albeit limited to the front. A few heavier sound effects -- a cooking pan that clanks off the floor in one scene or, in the final thirty or so minutes of the movie, a few bursts of gunfire and a clap of thunder -- play with a muffled edge but an honest amount of energy and volume. It's nothing special, but Betsy's Wedding's soundtrack at least tries, constrained by the two-channel presentation but giving listeners all it's got and then some, anyway.

Betsy's Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

No supplements were invited to Betsy's Wedding.

Betsy's Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Betsy's Wedding is a cute and comfortable little affair that's kind of like a dark side version of Father of the Bride. The movie isn't really dark per se, but the humor is a little more off-kilter and the characters a little less than bumbling fairy-tale perfect, but the movie is charming to no end thanks to a wonderful character roster and a few interesting and intermixing stories that might take away from the "Big Day" but that certainly compliment it nicely. Mill Creek's Blu-ray release of Betsy's Wedding features a fair high definition transfer, a utilitarian sort of soundtrack, and no extras. What the heck, recommended considering the price.