Simply A Masterpiece

Good movie but grossly overrated

Brilliant and touching

The performances transcend the film's tropes, grounding it in characters that feel more complete than this subgenre often produces.

A children's book author, Sam Davis, is presenting his newest work. To our surprise, only his friend Marshall has come to support Sam. The book is terrible, perhaps a bit better than the previous one whose subject was a flying koala bear. Sam has invited Marshall to come along for a week-end in Long Island. The real purpose of the outing is to crash the wedding of Zoe and Whit. Secretly, Sam has been madly in love with this woman, who also got interested in him, for just a brief period of time.Sam and Marshall are staying in a hotel near the mansion where the celebration will be held. Sam decides to crash the party down the beach. Zoe is surprised. when she realizes what is going on. She has no excuse for not introducing the crashers to Whit, who likes the newcomers. The duo is obviously out of the league of a screen actor with a lot of money, who is civil in putting them up and expects them to attend the wedding. Zoe begins to regret her involvement with a younger man on the eve of her own wedding. Sam does not want to lose her, although for all practical purposes he has come too late to make his claim.Written and directed by Max Winkler, "Ceremony" is an indie we saw recently on DVD format. Zoe, a thirty something gorgeous woman has had a fling with the much younger Sam. Obviously he thought their brief romance would continue, but the reality Zoe has moved on. Now she is the bride to be and Sam arrives at the last moment to stir feelings she had not felt before. Marshall, on the other hand, feels used by Sam, a man he felt was his friend, but he is finding otherwise. Zoe shows signs of being unstable as she has last minute doubts the night before the big day. Unfortunately for Sam, he has come too late to even think he can rekindle what he had with Zoe.Michael Angarano started early in films and he is finally coming into his own. He has worked hard and deserves what he is getting. The emphasis in the film is the age difference between Sam and Zoe. Mr. Angarano looks much younger than he is against the more mature Uma Thurman who appears as Zoe. Ms. Thurman is always a welcome addition to any film she graces. Mr. Winkler gets good performances from his cast. Reece Thompson, especially, seen as Marshall, is one of the best things in the film. Lee Pace, who plays Whit, makes an impression as the movie star. Jake Johnson is on hand to keep things running smoothly as the brother of the bride and should have been seen more. Mr. Johnson livens things up each time he appears on the screen.

I enjoyed the first five minutes of Ceremony, where the main character is reading from his children's book in a library, and the camera slowly pans back to reveal all empty seats, except for one adult, who applauds enthusiastically at the reading's conclusion. It was original and funny, and I thought I was in for a good movie.I couldn't have been more wrong. The rest of the movie is plagued with one-note characters, (mostly) uninteresting dialogue, and good actor's talents wasted. All of the plot points have been done before, and better (e.g. the lovelorn sap chases down the woman he loves who is slated to marry a jerk). Uma Thurman's fiancé is so blatantly obviously a jerk as to be a caricature (in an unfunny way), and it is unbelievable that an intelligent woman would see enough in this man to marry him.The class differences at the resort is an old, tired plot device, as was the outdoor scavenger-hunt the host's family traditionally plays, which veered into the ridiculous.I'll give one example of a poorly thought out scene. Uma Thurman visit's the main character in his guest room to talk, since they were old flames. Up to this point it has been established that the room is very hot and stuffy. Yet she walks into the room carrying a sleeping bag, then crawls into it during their conversation. A moment later in the discussion she says "it's too hot to talk about that issue," all the while buried up to her neck in the sleeping bag under the pretence of keeping herself 'safe' from her former flame (no, there was no sexual tension at all, they were just having an uninteresting discussion about their past relationship). The movie is riddled with head-scratching moments like this, as if the writer was also the proofreader and didn't catch errors in logic (or overdone clichés).The best friend, who has been used by the main character finally leaves, which is the only believable occurrence in the movie. Then he inexplicably comes back! The only possible explanation for this was his attraction to the female caterer; I was hoping to see some dialogue between them which would have been a welcome distraction from the boring leads but she never speaks! None of the movie's problems are the fault of the actors, I blame the script.

I honestly did not enjoy this film. I found it slow, boring and utterly hard to follow. It is listed as a comedy, I didn't laugh once. This film tried hard to be an "arty" type film but came off disjointed, bawdy, sleep inducing and even utterly unrelated in parts. The characters were hard to get into, they didn't "gel" with each other. The scenes do not flow and jump around quite a bit and don't relate to each other. The characters were not believable and did not draw you in. They don't mesh with each other or fully give you a full picture of the relationship between characters. The whole way through this film you are guessing at the plot, at why a scene is playing out the way it is, and what is really going on. It is very obscure, not made any easier with the whole different storyline going on with Uma's character's brother. That confuses the whole plot even more. I struggled on with this film purely because I thought it would get better, and particularly I will admit because Uma was listed in it and I had enjoyed her acting in the past.Save yourself the bother and don't bother pressing play. Sorry Uma but you have acted in far better then this!

One of the easiest to watch movies of recent memories. The movie has a slow start establishing Sam's character as an absolute jerk and his friend Marchall's character as a whiny hypochondriac. However, things pick up nicely when Uma Thurman (Zoe) comes on scene. Nothing like a major star like her to pick things up.The setting is a gorgeous beach house on the ocean, with all the beautiful people partying for a weekend wedding - who doesn't love a wedding! Sam's character unfolds delightfully as his deeply romantic self comes to the fore. And Marshall proves to be a hero!The boys learn about life and love and the pursuit of happiness through pain and suffering. The movie, thankfully, doesn't take the easy way out by tying things up with a bow, but leaves you with the sweetness of the mystery of life.