Wedding bells are ringing? Not in Hollywood…

It’s wedding season! Which means a few of my favorite things: cake, champagne and dancing to “Shout.” What’s beginning to change, however are societal attitudes to marriage. Lately, people in real life and in reel life, just aren’t that into it.

My Best Friend’s Wedding and Runaway Bride both starring Julia Roberts were made in the 90s. Other wildly successful wedding-centric movies that topped the box office include Wedding Crashers, Sweet Home Alabama, The Wedding Singer and The Wedding Planner. None of the top ten wedding movies are from the last five years, with the exception of Bridesmaids.

Since the age of boy meets girl, boy marries girl, wedding films have branched out in increasingly complicated variations. Exhibit A: The “My family is involved” wedding movie. This model was made popular with Father of the Bride (1991), in which Steve Martin’s character pokes fun at the hardships parents face in putting on a fabulous wedding for their daughters, all while coping with the fact that their little girl is now an adult. It’s totally endearing, but now many think these traditions associated with weddings are dated. Not to mention that today, women are getting married increasingly later in life and are considered “grown up” well before they choose to get married.

Exhibit B: The “pre-gaming the wedding” wedding movie that is The Hangover (2009) franchise. The third film will be released on May 24 this year.

Exhibit C: The “Girl Dramz” wedding movie, in which there are catfights, ugly dresses and bridezillas. 27 Dresses and Bride Wars spearheaded this concept, but it was really more recent films like Bridesmaids and Bachelorette that were out to prove that wedding planning could ignite some “girls behaving badly” narrative. And while I think it’s disgusting, the innovative humor was apparently appealing. Maybe as an act of feminism? Now girls can be just as gross as guys can at weddings.

It used to be that clunky computers dated a movie. Now, it’s the characters’ relationship model that dates a movie (no pun intended). One telling plot device of He’s Just Not That Into You (2009) is that Ben Affleck’s character, Neil, spends most of the movie waxing poetic about how he doesn’t think he needs a “piece of paper from the state of Maryland” to validate his love for his girlfriend of 11 years, played by Jennifer Aniston. When she leaves him because he won’t marry her, Neil comes to the rescue at the end  of the film (SPOILER ALERT) and agrees to, indeed, get married. Even though this movie is only four years old, a plot line like this would never sell today, or even make it into the script with any chance of attracting viewership. And with good reason: in real life, the marriage rate has been slowly declining over the past half century-. In 1960, almost 70 percent of women of legal age were married. Now, it’s a little over 50 percent.

So now we have a whole genre of romantic comedies that try avoiding marriage in general. Exhibit D: The “Anti-Wedding” wedding movie. Jennifer Westfedlt, better known as Jon Hamm’s girlfriend, wrote and directed the dramedy Friends with Kids about a couple (played by her and Adam Scott — not the hot golfer) who are not romantically involved but want to have a child together to avoid getting married. Wow. Does being committed to someone really suck that much? Friends with Benefits and No Strings Attached both weren’t interested in committing to marriage, let alone a real relationship. What to Expect When You’re Expecting (2011) highlights five couples that are expecting who may or may not be married.

The Five Year Engagement challenges the idea of having a big wedding at all and focuses on struggling to stay engaged. This year’s This is 40 suggests that marriage is dull unless you work at it and get creative.

I am anxious to see where The Big Wedding, coming out this weekend, will fall. Packed with star power, the trailer opens with Diane Keaton arriving at her ex-husband’s house (Robert De Niro), where she nearly walks in on him and his new wife, played by a youthful Susan Sarandon. Keaton, in her hilarious awkwardness will surely win in this role. Their sassy, uptight daughter arrives wearing a business suit (who else could play that but Katherine Heigl?) and Topher Grace plays their younger son. But it’s the couple’s adopted Colombian son, Ben Barnes, who will be getting married (to Amanda Seyfried, in her same Mamma Mia beach bride flowers-in-hair get-up). The real conflict arises when their son’s biological Catholic mother who does not believe in divorce, or that children (like her son) should be raised by divorced parents, decides to attend the wedding. Diane Keaton and Robert De Niro must “pretend” to be married all weekend, causing Susan Sarandon to go off the deep end. Robin Williams makes a cameo as the priest.

Overall, the movie seems bright, summery and welcoming, a similar aesthetic of Nancy Meyers’ films Something’s Gotta Give and It’s Complicated. But that will not be enough to draw crowds, particularly those who are used to The Hangover or Bridesmaids for their wedding movie outlet. The rosy, wholesome fun in this film does not stand a chance.