White Wedding Blu-ray Movie

Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		3.5
Audio		3.5
Extras		0.5
Overall		3.0

White Wedding Blu-ray Movie Review

South Africa’s answer to the Hollywood rom-com.

Reviewed by Casey Broadwater January 22, 2011

A blurb on the cover—by Los Angeles Times critic Gary Goldstein—proclaims that “White Wedding is like The Hangover off steroids. It’s another get-me-to-the-church-on-time obstacle course.” Now, it might just be me, but that statement doesn’t exactly sound like a ringing endorsement. After all, I think most of us would probably agree that the last thing we need is yet another race-to-the-chapel rom-com. Nevertheless, White Wedding has drummed up some interest in the U.S. for two reasons: 1.) along with matrimonial hijinks, it also profiles the still-uneasy cultural/racial dynamic in South Africa, and 2.) it was that country’s official submission for 2009’s Academy Award for Best Foreign Film. However, all this really says to me—after finally seeing the movie—is that South Africa must not have had anything more worthwhile to submit. Let’s just put it this way—White Wedding isn’t Oscar material. It touches on some thorny social issues, yes, but in most regards it’s a run-of- the-mill romantic comedy/buddy film.

Chunky groom-to-be Elvis (Kenneth Nkosi) has missed his bus, missed his bachelor’s party, and is in danger of missing his wedding. See, he’s in Durban, and his longsuffering bride Ayanda (Zandile Msutwana) is all the way across the country in Cape Town, where she’s frantically trying to organize the last remaining details of their nuptials with the assistance of, yes, that rom-com staple, the hyperbolically gay planner, attired in all manner of ridiculous fashions, including, yep, a feather boa. Ayanda has dreams of a “white wedding”—that is, a western-style service complete with a gleaming white dress—but her old-fashioned mother (Sylvia Mngxekeza) is dead set on a more traditionally African ritual. That’s one problem. To complicate matters, Ayanda’s handsome ex, Tony (Mbulelo Grootboom), shows up out of the blue, clearly intent on winning her back. There’s another. The main conflict, though, is how in the hell Elvis and his womanizing best man Tumi (Rapulana Seiphemo) are going to cover the endless kilometers to Cape Town on time. Stress levels are exacerbated when the two friends find a heartbroken stowaway hitchhiker named Rose (Jodie Whittaker) in their back seat. It should go without saying that a white Englishwoman in a car with two black men is a scenario bound to draw suspicion in South Africa, where a recent survey of 4,000 women revealed that 1 in 3 had been raped in the past year.

In a way, Rose is dangerously naïve—it’s a good thing she got into a car driven by some relatively upstanding individuals—but her lack of innate prejudice is, I think, one of the points that the film is trying to get across. Director Jann Turner wants to show that socially and ethnically disparate people, when forced to interact, are capable of arriving at meaningful connections. As true as that is, however, Turner sometimes takes it into the realms of the entirely unrealistic. During the film’s most patently ridiculous scene, Elvis, Tumi, and Rose wander into a pub with an apartheid flag draped across the wall, a “Whites Only” sign above the restroom, and a clientele comprised largely of glowering Afrikaner yokels in sleeveless vests. The sequence concludes with one of the elder patrons—a lifelong racist—inviting the three travelers back to his home after they’ve bonded over beers. Now, alcohol is definitely a social lubricant, but who knew it’s also a fast-acting dissolvent for calcified race hate? The film is a sometimes awkwardly mixed portrayal of South Africa as it actually is, and the country that the director would like it to be. This might work in a more serious or satirical film, where social commentary is precisely the point, but White Wedding is first and foremost a lightweight comedy.

And as such, it’s charming and frustrating in equal measure. The film is energetically good-natured; the road trip takes us across the gorgeous South African countryside, the leads are likeable—especially roly-poly Kenneth Nkosi, so comedically innocent and overwhelmed—and the banter between the three car-bound characters rings true, which is unsurprising considering the fact that Turner, Nkosi, and Seiphemo wrote the script after their own eventful cross-country jaunt. The prevailing tone is breezy, bubbly, and whimsical, punctuated by occasional dramatic moments when Rose or Elvis throw mini-pity-parties. The trouble here is that instead of taking its own shape, White Wedding strains to cram itself into the same old rom-com mold, a form lumpy with plot contrivances and clichés. Each spark of uniqueness that leaps from the film’s South African setting is immediately dampened by an unnecessary adherence to the romantic comedy rulebook, down to the soppy platitudes about love conquering all and the inevitably joyous, tidily resolved ending. It’s feel-good, sure, but the emotion wears off before the credits even roll, leaving us to shrug in indifference. We thought we were getting a distinctly South African story, but it looks a lot like Hollywood from here.

White Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

White Wedding debuts on Blu-ray with a 1080p/AVC-encoded transfer that's probably true to source—although that source, it should be said, is a fairly low budget international production. While some sections look filmic, the movie appears to have been shot on high definition video, and it exemplifies one of the medium's major shortcomings—a tendency to blow out highlights, turning skies into a wash of pure white and giving bright colors a blotchy, mottled quality on occasion. By and large, however, over-exposure is the only real distraction here. There are no signs of excess digital tinkering, no encode mishaps, and no overt compression issues aside from a few instances of mild banding in subtle color gradients. The level of clarity on display is not exceptionally refined, but high definition detail is visible, especially in skin and clothing textures. And while colors during bright outdoor scenes sometimes look slightly washed out—due to the aforementioned exposure issues—inside, hues are denser and darker, with better contrast and range. Likewise, black levels are adequately deep and skin tones are natural throughout. This is probably as good as the film is ever going to look.

White Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

The film's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround track features a pleasing cultural hodgepodge of languages, predominantly a mixture of English, Afrikaans, and Xhosa—the South African language known for its distinctive "clicking" sounds. I mention this for two reasons: 1.) to point out that the film is inherently dialogue driven, and 2.) to warn you to prepare yourself to switch rapidly between listening and reading subtitles, as characters will often start a sentence in one language and finish it in another. Thankfully, the dialogue is always clear and the subtitles easy to read. (By default the subs only appear during non-English dialogue, but I found it easier to just turn on the English SDH subtitles so that all vocals appear at the bottom of the screen.) In all other regards, this track is pretty typical for a rom-com. You'll get some lively ambience from the rear speakers—barking dogs, insect noise, bus terminal chatter, etc.—and a few cross-channel movements, like cars zipping past, but nothing that will outright blow you away. The score and an assortment of incidental tunes round out the mix, and the music sounds fine, with lots of deep, defined bass. Not bad.

White Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

Unfortunately, the sole supplement on the disc is a two and a half-minute standard definition trailer.

White Wedding Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Although White Wedding uses South Africa's unique cultural and racial dynamic as a backdrop, the end result is as formulaic as the latest tepid Hollywood rom-com. Romance fans looking for something slightly out of the ordinary may want to give this one a go, but don't set your expectations too high.