Muriel’s Wedding
Directed by P.J Hogan
Written by P.J Hogan
Starring Toni Collette, Rachel Griffiths
Release Date March 10th, 1995
Published March 11th, 2025
Muriel’s Wedding stars Toni Collette in a debut performance that blows the doors off. It can come as no surprise that Collette has gone on to be one of our most reliable, beloved, and extraordinary leading ladies after she absolutely smashed this comic debut. Colette’s Muriel is a complicated mess of a character, a tangle of depression, bad decisions, low self esteem, and an agonizing longing for a different life. When she finally sparks the courage to search for a new life, the journey is incredibly funny, rewarding and heartbreaking. And all of this is playing through Collette’s extraordinary performance as framed by P.J Hogan’s deft direction.
Muriel is a mousy, wedding loving, dreamer. Her life centers on two things, loving the music of Abba, her pop culture comfort food, and dreaming about getting married. Muriel may, in fact, prefer the wedding to the actual marriage and companionship. Wedding dresses, bouquets, and the pageantry of a wedding procession are her true passion, even as she rarely outright says this. The film implies Muriel’s obsession while Muriel herself just tries to remain unnoticed. This is easy among her family where she’s one of several adult children with no job and few prospects.
Click here for my full length review at Geeks.Media.
