Ceremony
Village East Cinema, April 16, 2011
Movie #23 for 2011
I missed the session of the film I actually wanted to see and so bought a ticket to whatever was playing next. Turned out to be Ceremony. Whatever, indeed.
23 year-old Sam (MICHAEL ANGARANO, Sky High) drags his best friend Marshall (REECE THOMPSON, Rocket Science) along as he crashes the wedding of his older ex-lover Zoe (UMA THURMAN) to documentary film-maker Whit (LEE PACE, Miss Pettigrew Lives for a Day).
That’s all well and good, but I wasn’t at all convinced by any of the connections - Whit is completely self-absorbed and his films are awful; Sam is a pathological liar with delusions of Holden Caulfield; and Zoe, well, I wouldn’t really know about Zoe since she hardly gets a sniff of character development.
But now, as I reflect back, I think the film is less about the romantic triangle of Sam, Zoe and Whit and more about the friendship between Sam and Marshall. Which is good, because that’s where the characters - and actors - really pop. It’s a shame then that so much of the screen time is about other - less interesting and much less compelling - things. But, you know, whatever.
