The Wedding Singer (1998)

July 2, 2023 9:38 AM

Robbie, a singer, and Julia, a waitress, are both engaged, but to the wrong people. Fortune intervenes to help them discover each other.

Set in 1985, Adam Sandler plays a nice guy with a broken heart who's stuck in one of the most romantic jobs in the world, a wedding singer. He loses all hope when he is abandoned at the altar by his fiancé. He meets a young woman named Julia (Drew Barrymore), who enlists his help to plan her wedding. He falls in love with her and must win her over before she gets married.

Danielle Solzman: One of the most memorable things about the film is Robbie rushing onto a plane to win Julia back. With the help of Billy Idol and the plane’s flight attendants, Robbie starts singing “Grow Old With You.” It leads to a happy ending. It’s doubtful that we’ll ever get a sequel (no, really, it’s not necessary) but we can only imagine that Robbie and Julia are very much still in love with each other.

Betsy Bozdech: ut The Wedding Singer succeeds on more than its '80s fever. As one of Sandler's typically goofy, endearing characters, Robbie is an underdog everyone can root for — who wouldn't love a guy who gets rapping grannies on stage and makes the astute observation that Julia's married name will be "Julia Guglia"? His occasional rants and flashes of rage ("Once again, something that could have been brought to my attention yesterday!") are all the more effective because Robbie is more reined-in than some of Sandler's id-driven characters. And Barrymore is at her most winning, flashing apple-cheeked grins and beaming brightly at everyone she meets. Funny and sweet at the same time, The Wedding Singer's comedy complements its romance, and vice versa; it may not be glamorous or flashy, but it's a heck of a good party.

Ruthe Stein: The only suspense is how long it will take Robbie and Julia to figure out that they're meant for each other. When Robbie is stood up at the altar, it transforms him from the life of the party to a depressed mess. He goes from joyfully singing "You Spin Me Around (Like a Record)" to a moaning rendition of "Love Stinks." Whether upbeat or downbeat, these onstage numbers by Sandler are the movie's funniest scenes.

Trailer

posted by Carillon (11 comments total)

In the late 90s/early aughts, my cousin was in her late teens and college, and was a self-described "oldies fan" - of 80s music. (Which made me, who was a teenager in the 80s, feel impossibly old.)

One year at Christmas or Thanksgiving or another such family-gathering holiday at my parents' house, a few of us took over the CD player and played DJ for everyone. My cousin brought out the Wedding Singer soundtrack - and when she started playing it, everyone ceded control to her....but only because everyone was having so much fun watching me reel in shock at each song, marveling about how "Oh my God I haven't heard this in years."
posted by EmpressCallipygos at 9:49 AM on July 2, 2023 [2 favorites]

For me this is the movie where Sandler's anger works and makes sense. In a lot of his other movies he has this bottomless will of anger that pops up and feels to me this privileged aggrievment that sits wrong. Here at least it comes across from a more understandable space and he's processing through it rather than just tamping it back down.
posted by Carillon at 12:06 PM on July 2, 2023 [9 favorites]

I really enjoyed this one. Adam + Drew is one of those "I wouldn't expect it to work, and yet it works" pairings. He has some surprisingly sweet moments with the granny, and everything with Drew is sweet. I also really appreciate his bitterness at that one wedding, speaking as a mutant at table 9.
posted by jenfullmoon at 2:39 PM on July 2, 2023 [10 favorites]

I adore this movie, and his bitter song about Linda is still one that I like to yell out every now and again.
posted by TwoStride at 9:25 PM on July 3, 2023 [3 favorites]

I am fascinated by Adam Sandler's career; for a moment he made a trio of genuinely good films. Billy Madison remains endearingly stupid, Happy Gilmore is one of the better sports movie parodies, and there's The Wedding Singer, which is a near-perfect romantic comedy, where the leads just work. Yet the rest of everything Adam Sandler touches is inimitable garbage! He's shown he can, but he chooses not to! It's the mystery of life, man.
posted by Fiasco da Gama at 10:06 PM on July 3, 2023 [6 favorites]

This is part of the Sandler/Barrymore trilogy, which almost pulled off the hat trick of every film being great (Wedding Singer and 50 First Dates are great!). Wedding Singer is beloved in this house because, like most successful Sandler comedies, it finds that right balance of the absurd with heart. We quote this film a lot. I'm tired, so I can't go on, but yes to Wedding Singer.
posted by Atreides at 12:44 PM on July 4, 2023 [1 favorite]

Yet the rest of everything Adam Sandler touches is inimitable garbage!

Uh, have you seen Punch Drunk Love?
posted by orange swan at 7:11 PM on July 4, 2023 [5 favorites]

There’s also uncut gems (and, uh, maybe a cameo in b99) which prove that Adam sandler can actually do the thing which makes him famous. The rest of the time he seems to half ass his way through his career, collecting pay checks and extruding product. Drew Barrymore, however, is reliably excellent in everything.
posted by The River Ivel at 6:09 AM on July 5, 2023

Billy Madison, Happy Gilmore, The Wedding Singer and The Waterboy are all classic Adam Sandler comedies in my opinion. And he kills it in Punch Drunk Love doing a dramatic role. Most of his movies these days are just a cheap way to hang out with his friends and get the studio to pay for it but he genuinely had some classics in his earlier career.
posted by downtohisturtles at 1:59 PM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

I actually kind of love that Sandler pretty unabashedly makes garbage films most of the time (though he got a lot of praise for Uncut Gems, no?) precisely because he just wants to hang out with his friends and play lots of pickup basketball. Like, at least he's not pretending that Hubie Halloween or whatever is great art.
posted by TwoStride at 2:38 PM on July 5, 2023 [1 favorite]

Watched MANY times. They are both just very cute - though it's got the cringey thing where Drew's character would never date, let alone agree to marry, that jerk boyfriend. Billy Idol part is my fave.

This one and 50 First Dates are so very sweet and kind-hearted. I had to look up their 3rd outing - Blended? I have no memory of that one coming out.

Not generally a fan of Sandler in movies, not even Punch Drunk Love, but his Saturday Night Live songs were pretty great.
posted by Glinn at 11:00 AM on July 6, 2023