It’s time for a slice of life drama. This film started off on a really solid note but then decided to take itself a little too seriously at the end. There’s a lot of crying and over the top reactions for everyone along with a rather unsatisfying ending. It’s still a decent film, but I felt like this Affair could have been a lot better. Lets go into more detail on this.

Agnes and Tom may be married but they don’t get along very well. Tom is a penny pincher and Agnes always looks on the negative side of things. As a result, their daughter Jane has never gotten to do anything special during her life. She’s lived a very normal life up til now, but Jane didn’t mind. Unlike the other two, she’s an optimist. Now she is finally getting married and wants to just have a very small wedding. Unfortunately, she makes the mistake of allowing Agnes to say that her uncle cannot attend. This causes a lot of friction and negative rumors in the town so Agnes decides that Jane will have a wedding whether she likes it or not. Jane’s soon to be husband does not like this at all, but rolls with it. Slowly, the whole town begins to turn against Jane and her parents may go bankrupt from the expensive traditions of marriage. Was this the right call?

To weigh in on the marriage debate, I’d say that a quiet one is the way to go. If I did host a big party, I sure wouldn’t be paying for everyone’s breakfast and travel fare. See, people tend to get caught up in customs like this just because it’s the standard. I’ve never agreed with that, hence why I eat rice and beans with a spoon and not a fork. A fork may be a sign of social acceptance so everyone wants to do it, but a spoon is faster and more efficient so that’s what I use. So, if I held a marriage party, I’d expect my guests to show up and to have had their own meal. If not…too bad. They’re the ones who should be happy to have been invited, otherwise it looks like I’m basically paying them to attend. Of course, I’d probably just go with Jane’s original plan and get married at a Smash Bros local or something so I can keep playing.

Jane’s friends don’t help matters though. Her bride’s maid is more concerned with how others see her than actually helping out at the wedding and puts Jane into a bad situation with no real advanced notice. The groom’s parents decide to invite a ton of people so that the price will go up and Agnes/Tom will be in even worse financial shape. There isn’t a whole lot of sympathy from the others here, but at the same time the main characters don’t handle it too well either. It’s their money so they should lay down the ground rules. Simply don’t accept that many guests and they’ll be fine. This story is really about not letting other people walk all over you. Even Jane crumbled a bit since this would have all been avoided if she had simply stuck to the small wedding plan.

The first half was more of a traditional comedy though so that part was good. The meeting of both pairs of parents was fun even if Agnes kept cutting Tom off and making them look bad. The film also just works a lot better this way than as a tragedy because it’s a whole lot more believable. It helps that the Uncle’s plot didn’t appear as much here. As a character he was okay, but the plot where he meets up with an old neighbor just didn’t work for me. It didn’t actually add anything to the story and in a way it was used to mock the main characters. The Uncle is apparently rich, but since the main characters are always being mean to him, he decides not to help them out.

The reason why the ending isn’t very satisfying is because the characters essentially had the worst of both worlds. They planned out the wedding and made the down payments, but had to cancel it at the last second. Tom decided to drink a bunch of beers so he got a hangover and the parents were late to the wedding or may have missed it entirely. The film ends with them still en route. We never got any scenes to make the Groom likable and he just comes off as a rather inconsiderate person. The parents got the taxi though so that should hopefully make everything okay.

Hmm, this review sounds pretty negative doesn’t it? Well, the writing is pretty solid. It’s an old film so the characters are all on point and sound like actual people. It’s also just a soothing little adventure for a while. Even with the dramatics it never gets unwatchable or too down in the dumps. If the first half was a 7, then the next half would be more like a 4.

Overall, The Catered Affair may have missed out on some opportunities, but it’s still a good film. I definitely wouldn’t be thrilled to pay for a wedding with my entire life savings if I had been doing such a good job of earning money for several years. So, you can sympathize with Tom quite a bit as well. The Wedding salesman also did a pretty good job of scamming the heroes as well. You always gotta make sure that you sell as much as possible if you want to be a good salesman. I’d recommend checking this out if you want to see what happens when you spend too much money on stuff like this or why you shouldn’t listen to random strangers about how you should do things. Once you let go of the peer pressure, then you can really enjoy yourself.

Overall 5/10