Muriel's Wedding is just so damn sad

[Hassled]

She has so many issues - such an awful father, such a desperate mother. When she walks back down the aisle and doesn't even notice her mother there it makes me want to weep. Why does Muriel think marriage will give her value to such an extent? She didn't get that from her parents' marriage. And while she says that life with Rhonda is better than an Abba song, she's a shit friend to her.

I've watched it before and laughed, but tonight I watched it and just thought how horribly sad it is and what a dysfunctional, chaotic girl she is.

Posted too soon!

I have never thought of MW as a comedy. I saw it in an art house cinema when it first came out, and thought it was rather noire. I was astounded when I realised it was meant to be a comedy!

Muriel is a very conflicted person, who just wants some kind of validation. Marriage is validation to many, for whatever reason. But she’s also not necessarily nice.

I love Murial's wedding. It has some very funny bit in in and I love the ABBA music of course but it is very sad. The ending is hopeful though.

Murial's wedding has always been a deeply moving film to me. I cry throughout.... everyone's life is decimated in one way or another and it's just regular life. Another great Aussie movie is The Dressmaker.

The Dressmaker is fantastic and Kate Winslett's 1940s/50s western Victorian accent is spot on.

I really like Sirens.

I remember my friends telling me how hilarious and amazing it is (around 14) and just finding Muriel's life sad and depressing and not funny at all

Similarly with East Is East, I laughed loads the first time. Second time I just found it unbelievably sad and didn't laugh once, it was like I'd watched two different films

Omg cross post with @olwen !

So glad someone else felt the same

It’s a bit like Heathers and Election, dark and quirky with deeply flawed characters. I think they are all great films

I have a friend like Muriel.....growing up she placed so much importance on the wedding , and THAT dress!!

Is it the Disney princess influence?

There's also the part where Muriel meets a guy she starts dating who she met while working at a video shop, she's with him the night they go out and her friend Rachel Griffith suddenly loses feeling in her legs and is then told she has cancer and is restricted to a wheelchair. For a while Muriel is with her and helping her out as well as dating that guy, but then she just suddenly gets so obsessed with getting married that she first spends her days trying on wedding dresses and then marries that swimmer she didn't even know and during that time she completely abandoned both the guy she dated and Rachel. And then they are both at the wedding looking very upset, and Rachel tells her off really good. It's easy at many parts of the movie to sympathize with Muriel but she also makes some selfish and heartless choices to suit what she's wanted. And then she completely ignores her mother at the wedding, as well as what she did with the blank check she gave her.

I definitely sympathize with Muriel on the way her father treated her, and the way her so-called friends dumped her and belittled her. But Muriel was not flawless or always caring of others herself. She had her father's selfish ways although she didn't have his nasty hateful attitude