Muriel's Wedding (1994) - Comedy Drama

Muriel's Wedding (1994) is no rom-com, it's a comedy-drama of the highest order. In this coming of age tale, Toni Collette plays Muriel, an immature young woman still on the road to adulthood and making all the mistakes she can to get her there. PJ Hogan writes and directs one of the best comedy dramas ever made. For more info, see the Wikipedia section below. Background music is "PCH" by Patrick Patrikios, available from YouTube's Audio Library. Info from Wikipedia: Muriel's Wedding is a 1994 comedy-drama film written and directed by P. J. Hogan. Starring Toni Collette, Bill Hunter and Rachel Griffiths, the film focuses on the socially awkward Muriel whose ambition is to have a glamorous wedding and improve her personal life by moving from her dead-end hometown, the fictional Porpoise Spit, to Sydney. A co-production between Australia and France, the film premiered at the 1994 Cannes Film Festival and was released in Australia on 29 September 1994 and in France on 26 October 1994. It received positive reviews and earned multiple award nominations, including a Golden Globe Award nomination for Best Actress in a Motion Picture – Musical or Comedy (Collette). Muriel's Wedding received positive reviews from critics. On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, the film holds an approval rating of 82% based on 50 reviews, with an average rating of 7.2/10. Peter Stack of the San Francisco Chronicle wrote, "With such recent hits as Strictly Ballroom and Priscilla, Queen of the Desert, Australia seems to be cornering the market for odd but delightful comedies laced with substance and romance. The latest, Muriel's Wedding, is another bright, occasionally brilliant, example... the movie is much meatier than its larky comic sheen leads you to think at first...There's poignant drama in this brash, sometimes overstated film, and Muriel's transformation is truly touching." Peter Travers of Rolling Stone called it "exuberantly funny...a crowd pleaser that spices a tired formula with genuine feeling... In the final scenes, when Hogan dares to let his humour turn edgy, Collette's performance gains in force, and Muriel's Wedding becomes a date you want to keep."