"The People We Hate at the Wedding": Two sisters and their mum find love, the gay guy doesn't, and there's only one penis

  

Link to NSFW version

The 2017 novel The People We Hate at the Wedding is about a wealthy British girl, Eloise, hoping to reconcile with her two American half-siblings, Alice and Paul, by inviting them to her lavish wedding.  Paul is gay, complete with longsuffering boyfriend. 

 Knowing how much Hollywood loves to straighten gay characters, I watched the 2022 movie version on Amazon Prime to make sure that Paul stays gay.

Scene 1: Various childhood antics of the half-siblings, including a disastrous Santa Claus-sitting with a very cute, harried harried Elf photographer (Brandon Johnston, left).

Scene 2: The young adult Alice, who works at a small desk in a big office, checks her mail: the invitation to her half-sister Eloise's wedding!   She calls her brother, Paul (Ben Platt), who works at some sort of counseling center, to see if he got one.  Yep.  "But We're not going.  We hate her!"  

Scene 3: The siblings' Mom tries on clothes and plot-dumps on the sales clerk: Her husband is dead, so her romantic life is over (she'll find love by Act 2). Also, her kids aren't going to Eloise's wedding because they hate her.

Scene 4: At work, Alice gets summoned by the Boss (Jorma Taccone), to screw in the supply closet, followed by lunch.  Jonathan wonders if she just likes him for his money.  "Of course not.  I like you for your dick."  

Scene 5: Paul is out with a straight guy(Randall Park) and three femme, double-entendre-spouting gay guys (Greg Barnett, Karan Soni, Pedro Minas), who brag about the new guy they've added to their threesome. Wait -- they are already a threesome, aren't they?

Three guys doing gay stuff together!  Paul is sick of gay hypersexuality and flamboyance, so he hangs back to talk to the straight guy. So this Paul is straight, too? 

 Then they all go to see King Lear.  At the line "How sharper than a serpent's tooth it is to have a thankless child!," Mom texts Paul, asking him to please come to the wedding. 

Scene 6:  Alice drops Boss off at his house, pretending to be an Uber driver so his wife doesn't get suspicious.  He wants a permanent relationship, so he's going to ask for a separation -- sometime.  Wife comes out of the house carrying a baby, making Alice feel guilty.

Scene 7:  Paul in bed with his boyfriend, discussing their disapproval of the three-way relationship. Wait -- he was one of the flamboyant three-way guys.  I'm confused.   

All they do is hug and chat, but I guess that's enough to make Paul canonically gay at Minute 14.

Paul explains why he hates his Mom: after his dad died, she threw out all of his stuff, and never mentioned him again.  Boyfriend talks him into the wedding anyway, because it's in London.  Ugh!  London is my least favorite city in Europe. I've visited 5 or 6 times, and never had a positive experience. 

Scene 8:  Alice watches her boss/boyfriend living a public life without her and decides to go to the wedding after all.  Then she goes into his office and slips off her underwear -- just as the housekeeper shows up.  Hey, the housekeeper is D'Arcy Carden, who starred with Kristen Bell in The Good Place!  I wonder who else from that show will appear.  Maybe Ted Danson?

Scene 9:   Paul at work.  He mentioned that he doesn't like scones, so the Boyfriend sent him a scone basket to be mean. Mom calls; he hangs up on her.  

Next, the Counseling Center boss, Dr. Goulding (Tony Goldwyn), found security-cam footage of him hugging a patient after an emotional breakthrough. Inappropriate!  A month of unpaid leave!  Now Paul has no choice but to go to the wedding. 

I'm bored.  I'll fast-forward to the good parts after the break

On the plane to London, Alice has a meet-cute with Love Interest #1 (Dustin Milligan, left). 

There's an establishing shot that doesn't show the Tower Bridge or the Eye in the Sky!  

We see Rich Sister  Eloise is in bed with her fiancee, Ollie (John Macmillan).  Nice chest shot.

Alice decides to bring Love Interest  to the wedding as her plus-one.  They have sex on the floor of their palatial hotel room, next to the bed. Nice chest shot.

Later he dumps her: "You have everything that any sane man would want, but you don't want a sane man."  So gay men are insane?  Or did you forget that gay men exist?  

In London, Mom criticizes her first husband, Henri (Isaach de Bankoli ) , for screwing a lot of younger women.  She asks him: "Does it make you feel any younger, getting all that young ass?"  Actually, dating a young guy makes you feel old.  You don't understand most of their cultural references or slang terms, and they are not amused by your stories beginning "In my day...".

Mom and First Hubbie reconcile, and have sex with a chest shot and no boobs.   Score!

Paul and his boyfriend go to a disco with a third, Alcott (Julian Ovenden).  Femme couples voguing with each other.  What is this, 1985? 

They end up back at the hotel, kissing -- more nice chest shots.  But they can't decide who will give Alcott a blow job first.  Anal doesn't work, either. Everyone ends up frustrated.

At the pre-wedding party, Paul complains about his three-way failure to random strangers, embarrassing everyone.  Then he runs into Mom's reconciled ex-husband.  Wait -- he's cheating on her with a new girl!  Paul pees on his shoes.  

And the wife of Alice's boss/boyfriend flies all the way to London to confront her about "fucking my husband."  Why not wait until Alice gets home?

The results:

1. Alice reconciles with her Love Interest

2. Mom forgives her First Hubby for cheating, since she realizes that he has been hooking up with young women to fill the void left when they broke up -- 30 years ago? 

3. Eloise finally gets married.  

4. Paul breaks up with his boyfriend over their failure to decide who gives who a blow job.

My Grade:  Three successful heterosexual romances, one doomed gay romance, plus constant profanity and a lot of silly slapstick.  And would you really cut your mother out of your life just because she isn't sufficiently mournful over your dad?  Or break up with your boyfriend because he hogged the guy you were hooking up with?  Paul comes across as an utter jerk.

Plus: 10 named male characters, and I could only find two nude photos: Ben Platt's butt and Dustin Milligan's dick are on RG Beefcake and Boyfriends

Bonus Brandon Johnston.