The Bechdel Cast - Muriel's Wedding

Episode Date: April 17, 2025

Jamie and Caitlin get invited to Muriel's Wedding! Here's the Guardian piece we reference - https://www.theguardian.com/film/2017/nov/13/muriels-wedding-is-a-feminist-masterpiece-and-more-relevant-than-ever See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

On the Bechdel cast the questions asked if movies have women in them are all their discussions just boyfriends and husbands or do they have individualism? The patriarchy's effing vast start changing it with the Bechdel cast. Oh hello Jamie. Hello, hello what's up? How are you? Oh I'm doing pretty good, how are you? Oh, I'm doing pretty good. How are you? I'm doing alright. Yeah, it's just nice to sit down and watch an Australian film. So true.

Australian films are so slipped on. Wouldn't you agree? I agree, yeah. Absolutely slipped on. That Tony collects a star. She really is. And I always forget she's Australian because most of the roles I've seen her do she's doing in American accent.

Yes, I feel like she is she and then and we've talked about this on the show before but I never I never tire of this line of discussion but like she and Margot Robbie I feel like are our strongest stealth Australians that I'm aware of, unless there's more and we just don't know her. So true, because there's Nicole Kidman's always kind of slipping into her. I would not say she is a... I would not say that I'm like, really?

Nicole Kidman's Australian? Nothing but respect, but like, she's constantly falling out of it. Yeah, in a way that I simply love. I find it very charming. Oh my gosh, no, wait, you're not a succession head. Sarah Snook, Sarah Snook who plays the daughter, Shiv on succession is Australian.

And in all four seasons, I'm sure Australian folks would catch smaller slips, but I only caught one slip and it was so funny because she just couldn't say Range Rover. I think we've talked about this in the show too. Oh yeah, Range Rover. She couldn't say Range Rover. She said, Range Rover. And you're like, yeah, New York girl boss.

Anyways, this movie is proof positive that Toni Collette is indeed Australian and has been for some time, at least 31 years. Yeah, I would say most of her life. Can't speak to before then. But this was like her big, welcome to the Bechtel cast. My name is Jamie Loftus. My name is Caitlin Durante.

This is our show where we examine movies through an intersexual feminist lens using the Bechtel test as a jumping off point. We don't really have time for that. We gotta talk about Muriel's wedding. This is our fake wedding. This is our fake wedding. This is, yeah, we sort of planned this episode last minute

just because we were excited about it. It's a movie that we are, I'm sure that we're making a few perspective guests for this because I think so many guests are like, I would talk about Muriel's Wedding. People are frothing for this episode and we're happy to give it to you. And I am so excited to hear what people's experience with this movie was because I just like, oh, there's so much to talk about. What a film. What a film. I know, I know. Wouldn't you say?

So this film came out in 1994. Ever heard of it? It was alive, yeah. I believe, me too, and it's brave of us to say that. But this was directed by PJ Hogan, who I was like, who did, so he also did My Best Friend's Wedding, which we covered not too long ago on this show.

And by that I mean, I was living in my current apartment. So it couldn't have been too long ago. Very true. He also directed that Peter Pan movie that you have discussed enjoying. Jeremy, I was like, wow, he's coming up all over the place. I also have been thinking a lot about Jason Isaacs, who I believe plays Captain Hook in that Peter Pan,

because Jason Isaacs is in the new season of White Lotus. So he's kind of having, and I was like, who is that? And then I was like, oh, right, Wig, Lucius Malfoy's dad I was like what's his name what's his name wig in my head Jason Isaac's name is wig long blonde wig yeah I didn't know him before he was wig PJ Hogan also directed Confessions of a Shopaholic which I have also not seen I haven't either I know that people have and listeners correct me if I know that people have, and listeners correct me if I'm wrong,

people have a lot of love for that movie, but it seems more nostalgic than it being good. I'd imagine so. I can't say. I read the Confessions of a Shopaholic books when I was a kid, because they had like a lot of sex in them. Whoa. And I think my mom let me take them out of the library

because she thought they were Princess Diaries books because the covers look similar, you know, both very feminine titles. But like I learned how to, I value those. But I don't remember a thing that happened, but it's how I learned about fucking and credit card debt. Two things I have since experienced. Congratulations.

Thank you. Thank you. And I couldn't have done it without my friend, Shopaholic. I learned about fucking via Judy Blume books. Like the adult ones? Yeah, because she wrote- Forever? Yes, Forever was the first one. That's a very horny book. Very horny, and then there's one called like

Summer Sisters or something. Oh my God, I remember that one. Which also heavily references ABBA relevant to today's discussion. I do have a question, I mean, how on earth did, cause this was an independent film, how did they afford ABBA? I don't.

It was made for nine million dollars. I'm like, that's how much it costs to play three seconds of Dancing Queen now. I wonder. I mean, Mamma Mia ruined it for everyone. I was gonna say. The rights to ABBA songs are too high now. That's very possible,

because I think this came out before the musical. So maybe that was just what, let me, yeah, because the this came out before the musical so maybe that was just what let me yeah because the musical came out in 1999 so maybe Abba rights were were pretty cheap and I mean it's clear that no one in Australia in 1994 had a good thing to say about them well especially all the mean friends yeah yeah I mean you can tell where PJ Hogan stands because everyone who hates ABBA is a bitch. What an interesting movie. So yes, 1994, PJ Hogan written and directed by, I believe his film debut produced by two

women brave, one of whom is PJ's, his wife, Jocelyn Morehousehouse and a young actor who is pretty obscure becomes a big stah from this movie and a nice Tony Colette. That's so true. Jamie what is your relationship with this movie? I hadn't seen it and I have no idea why because it's like I think maybe it's just like a little, yeah, I guess it's like for the same reason that, I mean, I'm not comparing them, but they're like, for one thing, I thought this movie was a romantic comedy. Like I did not, and there, I would say it is like,

while it is coded as, it seems like it was marketed as a romantic comedy. I mean, I look at the cover of this movie and I'm like. Oh, that's a rom-com probably. Exactly. Like it's a, I was honestly like, is this just like a boring hijinks thing? Like, what is this?

This movie I would say is pretty thoroughly devoid of romantic love, but not devoid of love, but devoid of romantic love. But it is funny at many points. I found it very surprising, but like, yeah, I just hadn't seen it for whatever reason. For the same reason that, yeah, I think like Pretty Woman is a movie

that you'd think I would have seen by now, but it was just like a little too old where I don't think I grew up with anyone who was like, you gotta watch Muriel's wedding. But that's a damn shame because this movie, I really enjoyed it. I don't even, it's gonna be challenging to talk about because there's so much that happens in this movie.

I will say, okay, to be clear, I don't mean this as a negative, but a lot of tonal whiplash where you're like, it's this movie? No, it's this movie. It's a Nora for a few minutes, and then it's like a family drama for the last 10 minutes. It's like, it's so many different movies. It's also kind of like, I mean, I would be shocked if people weren't, you know, sort't in the way that fans do, rooting for Muriel and Rhonda to realize they're in love with each other.

I don't know what PJ thinks of that, but that's probably what should happen. Anyways, I just thought it was wild. Yeah, and also that this came out during a pretty cool moment for Australian independent film because it came out right after the adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert. So this was a really interesting time for Australian film.

So true, yeah. What's your history with this movie? Had you seen it? I had seen the first scene at the wedding at the very beginning. Interesting. And I don't know why I didn't keep watching. I think I like had to go to a comedy show or something,

but I watched it, I think when I was still living in Boston with my best friend, who I'm pretty sure is a big fan of this movie. And he's like, I'm gonna put this on and then I watched the first scene and then I like had to go. It's not that I like wasn't interested in continuing watching. It's also such a weird for it's such a weird movie from the moment it begins like I like what would you even leave being like where is this gonna go because it's like Muriel's getting arrested. Right.

So I knew enough based on that first scene to know that it was a movie about a woman who we're supposed to kind of think is this, you know, like sad sack person, but we also like love her and we're endeared to Muriel, but it's like, it doesn't start the way, like that first scene I was like, oh, this probably isn't a standard rom-com based on just like how things are being set up.

Or I couldn't really tell, but I never found out until yesterday what it was about, because I, for some reason, didn't keep watching it at a later date, but now I know, I've seen it twice now in the past 24 hours, and there's so much to discuss, there's so much that happens. This is one of the longest recaps I've ever written,

just because so much happens, and it's hard to gloss over things. I really liked, one of the many things I liked about this movie is that even though there are like I don't know I mean and maybe the recap will prove me wrong because it is just such a vibes movie but even when characters sort of drop in and out they usually I thought that the script in the movie was like much better than most movies about making

sure characters came back, making sure that people had a moment, someone who is referenced early on, we meet later, and we get to see, even if it's like maybe very sort of quick, but like you get to see sort of like the humanity of a lot of stock rom-com characters. Because it feels like this is a whole movie about the like quote unquote loser best friend that we see in so many romantic comedies. But this movie is about her and about how everyone around her is an asshole.

Like including her. Like I just. Yeah, she's got problems, but that's what makes the movie so like. It's so good. Authentic and endearing. Yeah, it's like if a movie focused on like the Judy Greer best friend character of so many rom-coms. Yeah. And then, yeah.

And if she had like huge issues with her family, we'll get to the fact that. But yeah, I thought it was really good. she had like huge issues with her family. We'll get to the family. But yeah, I thought it was really good. I also kept writing down real teeth. I just love when people- No, what's that fucking guy's name? Jerry Bruckheimer. No Bruckheimer teeth.

Veneers here. No Lorne Michaels teeth. None of it, none of it. Real teeth. Also, okay, the best example I can think of of a bit character that I totally forgot about and then she came back was that lady, Diane, who hates shoplifting.

Oh yeah, she's like- Because the same woman gets both Muriel and her mother arrested for shoplifting. Yeah she's like I guess it's sort of like those secret shoppers yes who just like goes to stores and like spies and narcs on other customers for shoplifting. Yeah I mean it's like I get it that you've got to work but the least you can do is be really bad at that job on purpose. Come on. Absolutely, yeah.

Well, in any case, should we take a quick break and then get into the ages long recap that I've written? Let's do it. Okay, we'll be right back. ["The Last Supper"] And we're back. We'll place a content warning here for suicide as well as family abuse dynamics. Here's the recap of Muriel's wedding. I also like, I'm like, am I saying this name right? Muriel? Muriel? And then later she calls herself Mariel. I think it's Muriel.

Muriel. I think that that, or at least that's the American pronunciation of it. Okay. Because that was, did you ever, I know the answer to this, did you ever watch Courage the Cowardly Dog on Cartoon Network? Definitely not at all.

Well, there's a character named Muriel on that show. It's spelled the same way, and she says it like that. Okay. It's kind of an old time, it's just like an old fashioned name. Yeah, well my grandmother was named Miriam, so similar vibes. I knew a few Mariel's,

I definitely didn't know any Muriel's. Her husband's name was Eustace, this cartoon I'm talking about. So they've just were an elderly cartoon characters. Got it, got it. All right, I guess we should start. So we are in a place called Porpoise Spit Australia. Ever heard of it?

No, because it's a made up place. Such a funny, fake name. We meet, Miriel Heslop, played by Toni Collette, at her friend's wedding. Not her best friend's wedding, just her regular friend's wedding. She has caught the bouquet Miriel has, and she's delighted because she loves weddings, she desperately wants to get married. The whole like marriage and wedding thing is like very up her alley. Yeah, but all of her very mean friends such as Tanya, Cheryl, Nicole, there's another one whose name I didn't catch.

They're like, oh, Muriel caught the bouquet? There's no way she'll be the next one to get married. She's never even had a boyfriend. Muriel, you should give the bouquet to someone else. They're also commenting on how she didn't even buy a new dress for this wedding. And she's like, yes, I did. And then it's like, well, yes and no.

I love her. I just like, she's impossible not to root for. Even when she's being a real piece of shit. I just, Toni Collette is so good. And the writing is, I thought, really good. I just, this movie weirdly made me like my best friend's wedding more. Just because I knew it was the same.

Not that I really to watch it again, but I know that our whole discussion around that movie was sort of like they were trying to go for something, but it didn't quite happen. Right. And I feel like they're trying to go something for, something different, but they're trying to go for something here that is also weirdly wedding related.

Right. But the difference is it works in this movie really well. Right, it seems like P. like PJ Hogan has a vested interest in subverting traditional wedding-oriented narratives and what he ends up doing with My Best Friend's Wedding, I appreciated to some extent. But it also just feels like it's so Hollywood and it seems like this movie is presumably completely within his control because it's fairly low budget.

It's, I don't know, yeah, I wasn't able to find a lot of information of like, was he, but I'm assuming because it's like a husband, wife, you know, producing to that, like creatively there was a lot more freedom to make some like, weird choices, because this movie makes so many weird choices. It really does, yeah.

And then there's a quick moment where Muriel goes inside and sees the groom whose name is Chook. You're like, maybe, maybe that's a name. Maybe? We're not sure. And he's having sex with not the bride, but one of the bride's friends, Nicole, and like Mariel sees them like secretly having sex in the laundry room. Then there's this whole thing where that woman, I guess her name is, what is it, Diane? She's like the secret shopper, like store detective lady who accuses Muriel of stealing the dress that she's wearing.

I am just like my enemy, my enemy Diane. The cops get involved, but Muriel's dad, Bill Heslop, played by Bill Hunter, who was also in Priscilla Queen of the Desert, and he's in another movie that we watched recently together. We haven't covered it on the podcast yet but Strictly Ballroom. He's in that movie.

He is Australia. Yeah. He is like a city council member or something. He works in government. It seems like he's a city council member who aspires to a bigger political career. Yes, yeah. Yeah, he's a climber and he's a city council member who aspires to a bigger political career. Yes, yeah. He's a climber, and he's a piece of shit.

He's the worst person. He kind of like butters up the cops to get Muriel out of trouble after stealing this dress. Then we cut to Muriel having dinner with her family. Her dad and her mom Betty, played by Jeannie Drynen are there along with Mariel's like three or four siblings. Her dad is carrying on about his various business dealings. He seems to be like a real estate developer or he like grants permits to people who build these like resorts and stuff like that?

I was not exactly sure. Yeah, because I was like, whatever he was doing. It's shady as fuck. Yeah, he was doing it illegally, but he, I mean, and this is a through line to the movie as it turns out, but he's such a liar that I was not even sure what he was supposed to have been doing.

Right, yeah. We don't really know. I don't understand. He's like, I don't take bribes, I mean agreements. And I was like, for what? Like, it just was, I don't know. I don't have that in me. I'm just like, it's too confusing. You're calling things other, I can't do it.

We just know he's sleazy. Yeah, and then he's also carrying on. Oh, the, Deidre! Like whenever he screams across any room, Deidre. The woman he's gonna leave her for. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So there's that. He talks about how he ran for state government once,

but he lost. That'll come back later. We also learn that Muriel dropped out of high school. She's currently unemployed and has been for a couple years. Her dad calls Muriel and her siblings useless and dead weight. And then this is when a friend of Bill's comes over to the table.

This is a beauty consultant named Deidre. Who is basically running an MLM it sounds like, like a 90s era MLM. It's not Avon, it's not Mary Kay, but it's something like it. It's the Australian fictional variant of those. Right, but Deidre offers Muriel a job. The next night, Muriel goes out to drinks with her friends, her mean girlfriends, including the bride

from the wedding, Tanya, who's crying because her husband is already having an affair. But not with the person that Muriel knows he's having an affair with, which is unfortunately like pretty funny when you see, like when you see, I think it's Nicole react to like, wait, he's cheating on me too. Yet another person?

Yeah, and her friends tell Tanya to forget about her husband and go on holiday with them to Hibiscus Island. This is the plot to Sex and the City, the movie. Oh my gosh, you're right. Yeah. I didn't even think about that. Yeah, it's like if they had a friend that they verbally abused almost to death

Fortunately among their crimes. That's not one of them There's not a random fifth But it really did feel like the cast of Sex and the City plus Tony Collette and everyone's screaming at Tony Collette to shut up right because what has happened is that Maryl's friends had planned a vacation without inviting Maryl and Then they tell her that they don't want Mariel hanging around with them anymore because she doesn't fit in with the image that they've cultivated. She doesn't wear the right clothes or hairstyles. They fat shame her and they also just simply don't like who she is as a person. Mariel naturally starts crying and she says, I'm not nothing.

And we're like, oh, Mariel. Yeah, like this movie is very depressing. However, I think it's so, like bravely, I think Toni Collette is very talented. But it is wild how they like managed to balance the tone in this scene that like your heart is breaking for her and the scene is still a little bit funny because they're in this like loud tiki bar

and the friends are so tone deaf that when they're like, oh yeah Muriel we didn't invite you on vacation because we hate you and we hate everything about you. And then I think Tanya turns the subject back to herself and Muriel's still crying and then she's like, could you stop making it about yourself Muriel? Like it's like, it still manages to be funny in this very depressing,

but in a way that isn't taking swings at our love of Muriel, which is I feel like really hard to do. And yeah, I mean, we'll talk about that group of gals, but it made me, because especially as the movie goes on, it just feels like when you start to realize the sort of unending depths of self-hatred that Muriel has for herself, that it's like she's saying I'm not nothing

like almost more to herself than to these women. And it's really sad. I know, oh, it breaks your heart. Don't worry, it's gonna work out for her everyone. It's gonna also watch the movie, it's streaming on Paramount Plus, but it's gonna work out for her everybody. Yeah, but a few really horrible things will happen first.

I mean, if that's not life. So best case scenario. Okay so her friends have dumped her. The next day, Miriel's mom Betty gives Miriel a blank check so that she can buy makeup kits from Deidre to resell because it is this like MLM scheme. Muriel tells her mom that she's gonna get married and be successful so that her parents can be proud of her. And there's a line that, and there's also, again, just like a character that I'm used to seeing in passing in rom-coms, for lack of a better description, depressed mother, and we end up getting,

I mean, it doesn't get much happier, but there is a lot of depth that we get with her mother that I wasn't expecting, and I was pretty pleasantly surprised by just the amount that the plot is considering her. But there's a line she says in that scene that, again, just broke my heart because it becomes, I feel like it's clear at the beginning, but it becomes clearer and clearer as the movie goes on

that Muriel's mother's coping technique is denial and shutting herself off to the parts of reality that are upsetting, even when that hurts her children, basically, but there's a line that she says that just broke my heart where she's like, your dad just wants to be proud of you. And you're just her phrasing it that way. You're just like, oh, I would steal all your money too. Totally. Which is what Muriel does. Yes, because we cut to Hibiscus Island, which is a very small island off the like northwest coast of Australia. This is where

Maryl's friends are on or former friends I should say are on vacation. They look over and see Maryl who has clearly used that blank check that her mom gave her to treat herself to a holiday and the other women are furious that Mariel is there. That night, she runs into someone she went to high school with, Rhonda, played by Rachel Griffiths. Mariel makes up a lie and tells Rhonda that she's engaged to someone named Tim Sims.

They- I, and you'll be shocked how long Tim Sims is canonically real in this friendship. It seems like months and months. She's like, what do you mean? You were gonna marry Tim Sims. It's somehow even funnier in the accent. It's just, I love it. It's her, I don't know why I'm feeling so referencey today,

but her, what is it, astronaut Mike Dexter? Like just the made up boyfriend from 30 Rock. That's Muriel's Tim Sims. I'm also reminded of, I forget which Brady Bunch movie, but it's like the ones that Christine Taylor is in. Oh, I haven't seen them. They were like big staples of my youth and Marsha at one point makes up a boyfriend

named George Glass. So it's a lot like that. I mean, cause it's also, and I appreciate that it's made clearer in Muriel's wedding than I think it's been in most, because I mean, God knows how many movies we've covered that have been like a relationship predicated on a lie.

But I am giving this movie a pass because it's a friendship, right? No, but also it is like, is made so clear to us why Muriel's doing what she's doing. It doesn't excuse her from being dishonest with people who, especially people like Rhonda, who actually care about her.

But it's very clear that this lie is coming from a place of insecurity, which is like, most of the times in my life where that lie has been made to me or like when I was in high school from me, is because you're insecure and you wanna seem cool. And yeah, I don't know, we just covered Rylane on the show and there's a similar thing there where it's just like,

oh, I'm only gonna see this person for one night. Let me just let them believe in the best version of myself that doesn't exist yet. And then you always end up entering a domestic partnership with this person, but what can you do? Right, it is very different from the standard like rom com, oh. It's a bet.

It's a bet or it's some kind of goofy lie to trick someone into thinking I'm not writing an article about them or whatever it is. The context here is totally different and it's rooted in something far more real, resembling real life because I've met so many people like Myriel who I like. Of course I like, either don't know they're lying or I can tell they're lying about something

but I understand why they're doing it because yeah, they're insecure, they're doing the like fake it till you make it thing. You know, it's- It's the classic, like I have a boyfriend who lives in Canada. Like. And some people carry that energy far into their adulthood. And Muriel is, I mean, she's not, I mean, not far into her adulthood.

Toni Collette, I think, is like 22 in this movie. But, you know, she, and also, as it becomes more obvious, and like, I don't know if it hit for you right away, and I just have a brain full of rocks, but it's also like Muriel has seen her parents use lying and denial as coping strategies her whole life. And so it makes a lot of sense that that would be her go-to.

For sure, yeah. Yeah. So this is the lie that Mariel tells Rhonda about her fiance, Tim Sims. And the two of them get to talking about Tanya and Tanya's friends, and how they were so cruel to Rhonda in high school. And Mariel is like, well, surprise, they're right over there so Rhonda approaches them and Tanya's like oh why don't you have a drink with us and Rhonda

is basically like no thanks you killy hid beach I by the way love like the the speed with which Rhonda wins you over is like unreal. It's so great. Yeah, and she's like, by the way, your friend Nicole is fucking your husband. And also I'm gonna go hang out with my new friend, Muriel, bye, like mic drop. Cut to, and also if you haven't seen the movie, important that you know that Muriel's obsessed with Abba.

Cut to them doing an amazing karaoke scene in Waterloo. And then you're like, oh, this movie is weird, weird. Like this, it's great. Also, My Best Friend's Wedding features an extended karaoke scene. Another PJ Hogan thing. Is it the one where they're at the rehearsal dinner or some wedding dinner?

I remember Julia, am I thinking of the wrong movie where Julia Roberts can't sing and then they fall in love? No, it's Cameron Diaz can't sing. Oh yes, yes. At karaoke, but then there's another scene where a whole group of people are singing at some dinner. Yeah, we're talking about two different scenes, but now I remember the karaoke scene.

PJ Hogan loves a weird karaoke slash bar fight scene. Yeah, because what happens is like Rhonda and Miriel are like bringing down the house with their Waterloo performance. The outfits. It's just awesome. Yeah. Meanwhile, Tanya and her friends are there and they're having a horrible time. And then Tanya and Nicole start beating each other up. Cut to Mariel's family. They're reading a postcard from Mariel saying that she's funding this expensive vacation

with all the cosmetics she's selling. Deidre hears about this and knows that Mariel's lying. Also, there's speculation that Muriel's dad and Deidre are having an affair. I can't remember if I've made that clear yet or not. Yes, there it is. Yeah. And it becomes increasingly obvious as time goes on. For sure. Because she just always happens to be in the same restaurant. I love that that's there. It seems like truly their system is, I will go to the nearest Chinese restaurant

and then you also go there because we see that happen in multiple cities. Like that's clearly just their thing that they do. That's their thing and he's always like, oh, what a coincidence. And she's like, hi. Yeah. Yeah, so back to Muriel

She's still on vacation hanging out with Rhonda who reassures Muriel that she is somebody She's successful and Tim Sims wants to marry her Shortly after this Muriel returns home very briefly because it seems like her family is missing $12,000 and they rightfully suspect Muriel of stealing it so she turns right back around and heads to Sydney where Rhonda lives. She moves in with her. It's a very sad scene but it's also very funny that that Muriel walks in the house with these like pretty gnarly tan lines too. She has the outline of sunglasses on her face,

which I thought was a funny touch. And then her poor mother is always wanting to give her the benefit of the doubt. And it's like, you didn't do it, right? You wouldn't do that. You're awesome. And Muriel's like, yeah, gotta go. And you're like, I mean, I was laughing.

It's funny. Use sunblock. Oh my God, people in the 90s were so stressful. Please use sunblock for the love of God. Yeah, okay, so Muriel moves to Sydney. She's still lying to Rhonda about having been engaged, although now she's saying that her ex-fiance, Tim Sims, is a cop, and so she's changing her name to Mariel

with an A to hide from him. And I like that, I mean, it's definitely like naive of Rhonda, but I also just like appreciate how game she is for like whatever Muriel's up to. Where she says and she means it, she's like, oh, you know, when she meets him, she's like, oh, are you are you trying to like have one last fling before you get married to Tim Sims? I won't tell anybody. Yeah. And then and then she's like, oh, are you changing your name because Tim Sims is a homicidal ex-cop? I won't tell anybody. And I was like, she is, uh, she's a true friend.

She's loyal. She's loyal. Even when it's like, come on, read back what you just said. Uh, but they're young, they're young. Yeah. Early twenties. Yeah. Yeah.

Okay. So Maryle now works at a video rental store and one night she goes out to a dance club with a customer named Bryce who had like come into the video store and asked her out on a date. She brings him back home where Rhonda is having a loud threesome in the other room. Mariel and Bryce start making out. She's shrieking with laughter, and then there's all this hijinks.

Well, okay, we have to slow this scene down because this scene, I had to watch it like three times because so much happens. Some of it is very hijinks, some of it is very serious. The giggly stuff I was really confused about because I was sort of wondering because what happens right before they start making out? And like, we'll get into this where, you know,

it is very 90s and ascribing to like, no consent discussions, nothing like that, right? Like they're vibing, but he comes on pretty strong, I thought. And she's laughing and it's unclear. I sort of was like, is it nervous or excited laughter? Because what happens right before they start making out is she sees her dad on TV say, Muriel, come home.

We don't care about the money. And so I was like, is she having a panic attack? Or is this funny? And it's genuinely, and it's whatever. It doesn't need to be directly clear to me, but I was like, I just felt, to me, I was reading that as she was just so overwhelmed by so many things happening at once,

where it was like, this is either her first or one of her first sexual experiences, and she's excited about it, but also nervous, and also her dad is on TV looking for her. And also there's a three way going on five feet away. And it's just like, it seems like she just like sort of her brain breaks a little bit and she's like, ah! And then hijinks and then cancer.

And you're like, oh! All in the span of like two minutes. It's so much jam packed into one small moment. Wild. Yeah, I was thinking about, like the context we learned earlier in the beginning of the movie is that Muriel's never had a boyfriend. That doesn't mean she's never had any sexual experiences, but it also might mean that she hasn't.

We don't know. We don't know for sure. We're not sure. It does seem like Muriel has a hyper-fixation on monogamy that would suggest that maybe she hasn't had it. But we again, we just don't know canonically. Hard to say. Yeah. But then, yeah, there's this like high jinx, see kind of slapstick moment where Bryce intending to like unzip her pants, he accidentally unzips the bean bag chair and all of the beans spill out.

Then the two dudes who Rhonda is fucking come out naked with their dicks out. And every time like, and why does Mariel sees them? She shrieks some more, but like in a, again, we're just like, well, how, it just seems like she, it's like she, I'm you're like she's very hard to read this How are you feeling I don't know Yeah, and also I'm like it happened so suddenly that I'm like why did they attack? I'm guessing they heard her Shrieking shrieking and then they're like, what are you doing to her? So the two other guys pin Bryce down,

thinking that maybe he was assaulting Mariel. Right. And then Rhonda comes out, and then suddenly Rhonda's like, I can't feel my legs. Cut to the ER. That scene is exactly as chaotic as you just described. Like, it is an experience watching that scene. Yeah it's a lot and then in the ER in the hospital

it turns out that Rhonda has a cancerous tumor that is pressing on her spine. That's why she couldn't feel her legs and she needs to have surgery immediately to have the tumor removed. Not to over cancer this discussion so much, but it did make me, I was curious how intentionally this was done. And apologies if you're an oncologist or a lover of oncologists, but the scene where she finds out that she has cancer

and the oncologist sort of just drops that word into the Conversation and she's like wait. I have cancer and he's like, um Yeah, yeah, duh like that has been my experience with most Oncologists like when I was taking care of my dad over a course of years Where there's sometimes this and I get it. We're dumb But like you have to say, okay, first things first, you have cancer, not just like, okay, so here's what we have to do,

we have to do it on this timeline. Yeah, idiot, it's obviously cancer. I'm like, bedside manner, where? Where is it? Anyways, I just felt weirdly validated by that experience of the doctor being like, oh, well yeah, it's obviously cancer. Like, you know, you have to say that.

You have to say that. You have to use your words. I mean, I've talked at length on various podcasts and episodes of this show about my kind of distrust of the American healthcare system, but yeah, I've found that a lot of doctors are not very good at communication, so. No, and then they're.

Maybe they should work on that. Yeah, anyways, it is a very, again, just like one of the many kind of abrupt, like pace changes in the movie, where it goes from like, oh, like Muriel's about to have a fun hookup with her crush to her best friend has cancer. And I just, again, was like so impressed that

even though the like, whatever gradient of things that happen is so all over the place, it never stops being a comedy. Right. But I'm sort of confused as to how that was even possible. But yeah, it's like, I mean, Rhonda has to have this surgery and it seems that, you know, Muriel is her main source of support.

Yeah, this will become clear in a few moments. Before that, Muriel calls home and finds out that her dad has left her mom and is currently in Sydney as well, facing an inquiry for accepting bribes after Muriel stole their money. But you also get the impression that he's been accepting bribes his entire career, so it's like not a new thing. Right, and then it's just like this happens to be the thing that people caught up on.

And also, I mean, it becomes clearer as the movie goes on that her dad is always doing things that seem altruistic, but are without fail to improve his own position. Which, you know, cause I first I was kind of surprised when he goes on TV and he's like, Muriel, we love you. We're, you know, we don't care about the money, but then it's like, oh, he was doing that

to make him more sympathetic in this big court case he was about to go through. He's like, he doesn't mean a word that he says, which we learn in even more kind of gruesome detail as the movie goes on. For sure. And this is maybe to help Muriel cope with this news of her friend being diagnosed with cancer,

but she goes into a wedding dress shop to try on a gown. She tells the shopkeepers that she's marrying her fiance, Bill, in September. Which is also like, ooh, that's her dad's name. Muriel, don't say that. Yeah, stick with Tim Sims. She also says that- Keep your story straight, lady. She also says that her mom can't come because she's in the hospital with a tumor on her

spine, aka what's going on with Rhonda. And by now we realize that Muriel is a serial liar. I mean, yeah, that was pretty clear from the jump, but it's like now happened several times. But I feel like that's the first example where it's clear that like lying is her coping mechanism because it's like she can't talk about, she finds it really difficult to talk about what is actually bothering her.

So she makes up weird lies that reference what is bothering her. Right, yeah, she's pulling from source material, AKA other people in her life, and then making up stories to make herself seem sympathetic. And it works. Because the shopkeepers- It's auto-fiction.

They take photos of her in the dress, which Mariel puts in a wedding photo album, which we'll come back on in a moment. Meanwhile, Rhonda is in physical therapy. She's learning how to walk again. She's incredibly frustrated because she's unable to do much for herself. Muriel has to take care of her. But Muriel's like, I don't mind. This is the best my life has ever been. It's as good as an ABBA song. That made me tear up. That was really beautiful. Yeah. But then, and then Rhonda makes Muriel promise that they'll

never go back to their hometown of porpoise spit. And she's like, yeah. Which I will say is, even though Rhonda is the best character in the movie, I think, and she's the realest, I wonder if it's a youth thing, but I don't know that she necessarily realized what a big ask that is, and that it was sort of said, and not to say that Muriel wouldn't have done it, or I mean, because it's like caretaking and assisting is one of the most important jobs that exists, but it was just, I felt a little bit for Muriel

in that moment where it's like, well, what do you say in that situation, even if you have reservations, you don't wanna seem like you're turning your back on your friend. So it was, I felt for both of them in that situation because of course it's like Rhonda needs a lifeline badly because she was, they literally bonded over

hating where they came from. But then in the same way, it's like that's a lot of pressure particularly on a new friendship. And so I just really felt for both of them. Yeah, they've only known each other for a few weeks, months. Maybe, and so it's like, that is a really steep escalation. But that's, I mean, God. Again, it's just like, obviously very specific circumstances,

but like, oh, two friends in their early 20s and a weirdly codependent friendship. Many such cases, many such cases. Indeed, yes. So one day Rhonda sees this wedding photo album that Mariel has been compiling and apparently she's been filling it with dozens of photos of her in different wedding dresses at various bridal shops across Sydney. And then Rhonda catches her rent red-handed like in the middle of trying on a dress and assumes that Mariel has gotten back together

with Tim Sims. And this is the moment where Marl finally admits that there is no Tim Sims. She made him up and she's doing that because she just desperately wants to get married because if she gets married, she'll be someone else because Maryl hates herself. And that is the moment in the video where I'm like, oh, this movie is so good. Where it's like directly confronting how we're conditioned to see marriage to some extent, where a lot of people are conditioned to see marriage, is as like, if you can do this, everything will be okay when look at literally any marriage,

that's so demonstrably untrue. And like, in the fact that like Rhonda is so awesome in that scene, and we'll talk about like the conversations around ableism in this movie too, but like the fact that she, you know, is like get out of my way because she's so afraid for Muriel and thinks that Muriel's reentering this abusive relationship.

And it's just like, it's so emotionally charged afraid for Muriel and thinks that Muriel's reentering this abusive relationship. Right. And it's just like it's so emotionally charged. And there's too much going on in their respective lives for them to be able to show up for each other in the way that they need to. And it's just like, ugh, that scene is so heartbreaking. And then also still somehow funny at the end, because Rhonda storms out.

And it's just like the two employees at the end because Rhonda storms out and it's just like the two employees at the bridal shop and a sobbing Tony Colette and they're like hmm so what do we do? So we need that dress back now. Right it's still like always there manages to be a comedic button on these like devastating scenes. It's wild. Yeah, for sure. Okay, so sometime later, Miriel meets up with her dad in Sydney. He berates her for stealing his money. Deidre just happens to come into the restaurant. Oh my god. And she and Bill confirm that they're in love and that Bill has effectively left Miriel's mom Betty for Deidre. Bill also tells Miriel that she has to move back in with her mom and she has like a few

weeks to do it. To avoid having to move back to Porpoise Spit, Miriel goes through personal ads looking for men who are looking for his wife. And this is like the maybe third or fourth time that the movie just like turns into a totally different movie where it's like this is the beginning of a, this is the first act of a different movie. But we're like well into the second act of this movie now. I just thought it was like, it was pretty, pretty awesome.

Cause that, cause that premise feels weirdly like old school romcom-y of like, I need to do this. And so I guess I have to get married. Like that's the oldest romcom trope in the book. So I thought when I was watching this yesterday for the first time, aside from that first scene I had already watched years and years and years ago, I thought that the premise of the movie was going to be

that after she catches the bouquet at this wedding and all of her friends are like, you'll never be the next one to get married, that Mariel will go on a journey, just be hell bent on getting married to prove those friends wrong. And that is kind of what happens, but that's not even necessarily her specific goal.

A lot of other things happen to get her on this path of this marriage that she eventually has, which we're about to get to. Well, it's like, because it's like the real inciting incident of this movie is meeting Rhonda. That's what really changes things. It feels like, I don't know. I feel like it's clear by the end that it's like,

you know, platonic or not, Rhonda is the great love of Muriel's life and vice versa, even though they both make their mistakes, Muriel more than Rhonda. But yeah, that scene, it's so, I don't even know what I thought this movie, I thought it was literally just like, my wedding is next week.

Ah, because that's so many movies. Like, they were like, I guess it's one of those. But it's just so twisty, turny. This is to me when it turns into, it accidentally turns into like sort of an aura for like 10 minutes, where it's like, there's this rich guy from a foreign country that you know nothing about.

You're gonna marry him, but it's not serious. And you're like, I know this one. Right, because here's what happens. So she finds a personal ad that seems promising. So she goes to respond to it. Meanwhile, Rhonda reveals that her cancer has come back and that she'll never walk again. And Rhonda's mom is insisting that she does move back home

to porpoise spit. Muriel's too wrapped up in this other thing to really bother with what Rhonda's dealing with because Muriel... My read of that was like, it almost felt like Muriel was mirroring her mom a little bit in that sequence where the situation going on around her was too overwhelming and so she kind of detaches from it and does something else. Because originally, I guess I misinterpreted it the first time I watched this sequence

where I thought that Muriel had all of, she wants to stay in Sydney because she doesn't wanna be in this toxic family dynamic. But she also wants to be in Sydney because she loves Rhonda and wants to be there to support her. And so I sort of thought part of the reason she was seeking out this marriage arrangement

was so that she could continue to be around Rhonda. But then Rhonda is, you know, when Rhonda's mom sort of puts her foot down and is like, no, you're coming home, it seems like Muriel just freaks out and kind of detaches instead of fighting for Rhonda in that moment, which is like very relatable for someone

in their early 20s in over their head, but it's so heartbreaking where it's like Rhonda needed someone so badly to show up for her. Yeah, and Muriel is at this juncture in her life, not the person to be able to do it. No, she like can't manage her own shit. No, not at all. But she does manage to meet this man

who is looking for his wife. His name is David Van Arkel, and he's a swimmer who's trying to compete in the Olympics for Australia because he's from South Africa. And there's a long history of South Africa being banned from the Olympics for being an apartheid state. So he needs to marry an Australian woman to get a green card or whatever the equivalent is

so that he can swim for Australia. And his family is willing to pay Miriel $10,000 to marry this guy. Which is just like a totally different movie. It's a, like it's just so wild how, what an intense like tonal shift that is again. And so she meets this guy David and Miriel's swooning over him because he's handsome

and he's got a good physique and stuff. But to the point where it's like he doesn't, she doesn't, or maybe she's so accustomed to being negged in front of her very eyes because that's how her father acts. And her former friends. And her friends, just like she's just so used to being negged to her face that David is like, yucky, I don't like her to his like weird coach and Muriel's like, whatever. I'm like, yucky, I don't like her, to his like weird coach, and Muriel's like, whatever.

I'm like, no. Right, she seems thrilled at the idea of marrying him. He seems repulsed by her, but she breezes past that. Right, and he'll give her $10,000 that will allow her to extract herself from this financial obligation to her family. So, so win-win. So a wedding gets arranged between Muriel and David

and there's a lot of media attention around it since David is this like star athlete. So she like gets in the tabloids and stuff like that. Cut to the wedding, Rhonda is reluctantly there with her mother. Tanya, Cheryl and those women are there as Muriel's bridesmaids because they kind of came crawling back. That made my blood boil.

I was so mad at Muriel in that moment for, because you were like, oh, she needs to grow up. She does? Yeah. She does. Yeah. She does. Honestly, I was like nice of Rhonda to even show up. She's there quite reluctantly. It also feels like Rhonda's doing something that like,

I've never done this at a wedding, but I've definitely done it at various events. Just like showing up to be like, here I am. And how bad does it feel to see me right now? Yeah. It feels like Rhonda's pulling one of those and I respect that. Totally.

So there, there. Bryce is there for some reason. Again, just like another character that we really only encounter once or twice, who is given, I thought like sort of this deeper lore by showing up later where it seems like, first of all, he's dressed like he's going to a funeral, which felt intentional.

He's wearing all black. And I think it's implied that like he's upset things didn't work out between him and Muriel. And like he seems really sad that she's getting married to someone else. Which is just a lot of lore, even though he never speaks again, I don't think. No he doesn't, we don't see him on screen,

I don't think after this either. Sometimes I was like, maybe I don't really get Australian humor, is this supposed to be a joke? I think so. I mean I feel like the whole wedding is like a combination of being a joke, but it's also like, I found it genuinely unsettling

to watch, like it is kind of like a horror movie in the way it plays out, it's, yeah. It does kind of remind you of Carrie in like the prom scene where she's like so excited to have one prom queen, meanwhile, Mariel is like grinning ear to ear. This is like her, what she has been conditioned to think is supposed to be like, you know,

the happiest day of her life. And she's so ecstatic. She's getting married, which is what she's always wanted. And it doesn't matter that it's a sham marriage to a man who is disgusted by her. She's still like, yay! It's devastating. And the way, and again, it's like the way Toni Collette

manages to straddle how tragic that is with how funny she is, where like the huge smile and the like, yeah, la la la, like contrasted with people looking like they're at a funeral. Like it's really unsettling and a little bit funny and it's, yeah, it is like, I feel like the Carrie, that's a really good comparison.

And like somehow even worse than that, because we know that Muriel views marriage as a path to feeling seen and feeling validated and as a potential way to love herself. It's not like she doesn't fully understand that the marriage is fake. She knows that. That's not something that she's gonna be confronted by later.

That was in the text. So it's like she's smiling because she's seen and thinks that she's about to be able to love herself for the first time. It has like, which isn't, you know, whatever. I mean, they're doing a business transaction. I don't really care about David's apartheid ass feelings. We're so like, but it's like, she knows what's happening

and is still so thrilled because of how she's been conditioned to view marriage. And it's so like, I feel like the moment you see her happiest is like, I think it's Tanya, they all have very similar hair colors, who looks at Muriel in her wedding dress and says like kind of in horror, like, Muriel, you're beautiful.

And she's like glowing at like hearing that from these women who have bullied her entire life. And it's just like she's looking, I mean, that's like Muriel's, again, and it's like, how can you falter for that? I think all of us have done this to some extent, and everyone has had someone in their life that has been a more extreme example of it,

of looking for validation from the people who are cruelest to them instead of focusing on themselves. And then you're just like, you just want to shake her and be like, Rhonda's right over there. Like, please stop talking to these people that, but that's just, I don't know. I just, this movie is so good. Cause you're like, this is just like an abusive cycle

that Muriel is caught up in. Of like she's seeking out validation and love from people who just are not capable of it. Yeah. It reminded me of eighth grade because that's the journey that the Kayla character goes on throughout the whole movie. I was also so devastated because in this wedding scene,

the one other character besides Rhonda who seems like she truly cares for Muriel and her wellbeing is Muriel's mom. And she shows up at the wedding and she's late, but she's there, like she had to take it, like all that, like her father was there to like give her away. And he also very cruelly is like,

she's yours now, sir. Like. Well, and it's also like her father is there because it makes him look good to be there. Again, it's like everything with him is selfish. Is about image, yeah. Elevating his image. Her mom comes, she's alone, she's brought this gift

that she's clearly intending to give to Mariel. Mariel completely like breezes past her and ignores her own mother. And she starts crying. And she starts crying and oh my God. And then things just only get sadder from there with her mother. But I was just like, oh, like Mariel,

the people who love you, they are there for you and you're like blowing them off. And it's so sad, she needs to grow up. It's really sad, yeah. And I'm also like, she's like 22. But yeah, the stuff with her mom, again, it felt very, I'm trying to think of a less corny way to say subversive, but let's just say it.

But the way that the family is introduced at the beginning, at least, I was not expecting to get so much depth in those characters. I'm so used to seeing, this is the family that she wants to get away from, and wouldn't you? They suck, you know? And as time goes on, it's like, I mean, at least the way that Bill sucks is relentless,

but it is so much more complicated and specific than you're led to believe, and the ways that her mother is just like ignored, the dynamic among the siblings, like it's not, you know, like, Dostoevsky, but there's a lot of depth to the way that this family processes having to know each other. I agree, yeah.

Yeah. It's so many movies of like a similar ilk, or that would be sort of like maybe lumped in with this movie because wedding is in the title. Right. Have such tropy stock characters as far as like, I mean the leads also, but especially the like, you know, the family, you know,

the mom and the dad or the siblings or the best friends. And this movie takes time to show you how all of these characters are, they feel like real people. They aren't these tropey stock characters. They have layers, there's layers to them. It's Shrekian. It's Shrekian.

It's Shrekian. But they're, But it's also because I mean, and I know the movie's almost over, but I have complicated feelings towards the way that the cruel friends are portrayed because they are sort of made out to be the brain dead bimbo stereotype. But the reason I'm inclined to give this at least some of a pass is because of the,

like, stock characters you're talking about, where, you know, the cruel friends are usually the protagonists in these movies. And Muriel is a side character. Someone with a disability is a fully a side character that you don't get any insight into their inner life. Muriel's family, they're like, you wouldn't know a thing about them.

So it's weirdly like the people that you're used to seeing as protagonists, even like Bryce kind of disappearing when he seemed to be introduced as like, here's the love interest, just kidding. Like he'll show up once later. It just feels like, yeah, you're meeting these stock characters and then seeing them either deepened or written off

in a way that they usually wouldn't be. And it's like hard to be mad at it. It's interesting. Yeah, so let's see what happens next. The wedding happens afterward. Rhonda confronts Muriel for being a phony because Muriel's like, my girlfriends who dumped me, they came crawling back because I'm famous.

My bullies are literally obsessed with me. I was like, come on. Right, and Rhonda's like, okay, well, that is not impressive, number one. Number two, I have to move back to Porpoise Spit because you abandoned me. And she says, ooh, this is my favorite line. She says, Mariel VanArkel is not half the person

that Muriel Heslop was. Anyway. So true, so true. I just, yeah, it's great. And then the fact that Rhonda is then doomed to also hang out with this bummer group of girls, I'm just like, oh my God. I was-

Confusing why she goes along with that. I would sooner be alone. I'm assuming that it's like, it seems like when we see them together later, it seems like Rhonda's mom invited them over. I think they're at Rhonda's place. Yeah. Because her, so I think Rhonda,

like Rhonda's mom was trying to like, force Rhonda to socialize with people she didn't like. Right, because earlier in the movie, Rhonda says, I'd rather swallow Risa blades than have a drink with the likes of you. And you're like, yeah. And the way that things end with, well, let's just get to the end of the movie.

Yeah, okay, so Rhonda calls Miriel out. Back in Porpoise Spit, Betty, Muriel's mom, accidentally takes some shoes from a store without paying for them. And the same woman who- Because her feet hurt. Like her feet hurt. And she paid for everything else. It just seems like she forgot to pay for,

and she has so much on her mind. Her family hates her and they're cruel to her. And like- Well, it's also like, and now that she's been much on her mind, her family hates her, and they're cruel to her. And now that she's been abandoned by her husband, she's never been more alone in taking care of the family because she was asking for basic help from her adult children and husband when things were quote unquote normal, and everyone was saying no.

So now it's like her work has been compounded even worse and everyone is still ignoring her. Who wouldn't shoplift under these circumstances? True, but she gets in trouble because the same woman who got Muriel arrested for stealing the dress, she narcs on Betty. What a callback. Wild.

Who thought we would see Diane again? Wasn't expecting her to make a return. But this is when Bill tells Betty that he wants a divorce. He's like leaving her once and for all. After he does the thing that he does to fucking everybody and basically sweet talks Betty out of like having to serve any time because he's like, oh, all cops are my friends, which is like a red flag, right?

But he's super nice to protect, ostensibly to protect Betty, but it's just to protect his reputation. Because he immediately becomes extremely cruel to her. And it's also, oh oh it just made me so I hate him so much like the When they're on the way back and she was like I meant to pay for it and Like I'm so tired

I really just need some help and then he just turns the radio on and starts ignoring her And I'm just like why won't your head? Explode I like it's a nightmare. And then he tells her he's like divorcing her and then he says the reason he wasn't elected to state government when he ran previously was because his family was such an embarrassment. I really thought for a second because at this point

I'm like this anything could happen in this movie. I was sort of hoping that she was gonna shoot him. Kill him. I sort of thought for a second, I was like, I wouldn't be mad if she simply shot him. I would root for her to do that, yeah. Yeah. But instead, she's devastated.

She lashes out at her son for not mowing the lawn, I think. He's right there and like this is the first moment we see her kind of breakdown. And then Betty dies a short time later. Mariel is told that it was a heart attack, but we find out that Betty died by suicide. And that the this and this again, just like such a fucking twist of the knife, because we find this out from a character who, Joni, Muriel's sister, who were introduced to in this very, like, one liner jokey way. Because every time we hear from Joni she's like, you're terrible, Marielle. Like that's her like catchphrase.

And she's like the younger sister, I think, who always is like, haha, you're in trouble. And that's kind of the only thing we've known about her other than she ripsigs hanging out on the couch. That's what we know about this character. But then you get this moment of incredible depth into this character in a way that you just aren't expecting where Joni found her mother's body,

was able to glean that it had been a fatal pill overdose, and that the doctor had covered this up at the father's request because quote unquote, he's been through enough. And so the fact that it was still like, this poor woman's final cry for help was not gonna be heard because of the person who was abusive and horrible to her.

Like it just, and then the way he acts at the funeral, it's just like, but anyways, that moment with Joanie is like really profound. I mean, she's like, it seems like the brothers are kind of in shock. Weirdly, the youngest daughter seems like she's inviting her crushes to the funeral, question mark. That was weird.

I couldn't, I forgot she was one of the siblings half the time because I think we don't see her in some of like the dinner scenes or something or she's like not a focus. Everyone processes death differently, whatever, but like, but just seeing Joni in that moment be like, what am I going to do without her and realize like, oh yeah, they were extremely close and like, almost every time you see Joni she's with her mom and and that before the movie is over in a way that is also kind of made me feel sad was that you could already see sort of the beginning stages of Joni beginning to fill the role that her mother felt and her in her dad's life of like you know when she like hollers down to him from the balcony and is like, games on, want me to get you a beer?

And it's like the daughter sort of filling this survival role that the mom filled and to someone who just like couldn't deserve love less. This fucking guy. This movie is about breaking out of the cycle of abuse. I know. And then you mentioned, so the funeral is the next scene and we see that Bill, piece of shit that he is,

is more concerned about how the press perceive him. It's clear he called the press to be like, you're gonna wanna come to my wife's funeral. My wife's funeral and he doesn't seem to be grieving at all or it's just, he's so horrible. And this is the moment that Miriel realizes not only what a prick her dad is, but that she is similar to him in the sense

that she cares too much about what other people think of her. She has lied to people and sabotaged meaningful relationships along the way, and she doesn't want to be like that anymore. She breaks down her husband, David Van Arkel. Who again, like this is a, it seems like another movie's about to start and then it doesn't and you're like, yay. But I was like, oh, he came. What? He came to the funeral, he consoles her.

This is the first time he's been any manner of like tender toward her. Which feels kind of like a payoff of one of the few interactions we've seen with them before. Another very depressing movie, very depressing scene in a movie that's full of them. But when they get back to his fancy apartment after their wedding and all the pretenses are dropped and he's like, all right, there's your room, I'm gonna go swim, and can kind of feel

how meaningful the wedding was to Muriel, and asks her, who the hell marries someone, why would you marry someone who's a stranger? And she's like, well, you just said that. And he's like, well, it's because I wanna win. And she's like, so do I. And they're talking about totally different things, but you see that that affects him in some way

but you're like, I don't know if that's, but it clearly it does come back because whatever thought this fucking goofus is capable of having, at least it was like, oh, I was viewing this person as a warm body and it turns out that they're a fucking person. Which is a very low bar to clear, but many do not clear it.

This is true. But yeah, he consoles her as she's crying. They kiss and I think it's implied that they have sex. Yeah. But the next morning she's like, I'm leaving, we have to break up, goodbye. And then her dad is like, Muriel I need you to stay and help me raise the kids even though... Like how old are these kids? It seems like there's maybe one under 18. Yeah I thought so too. They're like the youngest daughter is like a teenager.

A teenager, but yeah, the rest of them seem pretty close to if not in fully adulthood. Yes, we also learn that in the sort of towards the end of Muriel's mother's life that she burned the lawn because she was so frustrated that she wasn't able to get help with it. It just seemed like there was a lot of struggling that Muriel at very least didn't see.

Or, and I think to some extent with the kids without putting the blood, because it is pretty squarely on the father, but a struggle that they weren't comfortable seeing. Right, I think it's probably a combination of her mom was good at hiding her various problems, and also that Muriel and her siblings were willfully ignoring any signs

that their mother was struggling because they didn't wanna be bothered with it or they were too focused on themselves or whatever else along those lines. And I think that there is this, I wanna be very careful with the way that I phrase this, but it's a dynamic that is familiar to me, not in my specific family dynamic, but whatever.

I've seen it of kids perceiving, specifically mothers usually, as weak and as targets of mockery in a lot of cases. And I don't wanna be like her kind of thing and as targets of mockery in a lot of cases. And I don't wanna be like her kind of thing without considering how she got there. Yeah, it just feels like a very specific dynamic that I haven't really seen a lot in movies. And also that to some extent that Betty

didn't want her kids see her struggle because she doesn't want to worry her kids. And we see that in scenes where she's again very willfully ignoring the fact that Muriel has obviously stolen this money and is like, maybe it was a mistake, maybe it was my fault, I don't know, anything's possible, and Muriel's honest and she still doesn't quite wanna hear it.

She doesn't wanna quite tell her kids why, but only, that's another reason where when you get that information later that Joni was the one to find that she had died by suicide and that Joni seems to be the only sibling who knows why their dad is gone. It's like, oh, these two characters had it, like Joni was her confidant

because Joni is the one that calls Muriel and it's like, yeah, dad left her. But then when confronted about it, Betty is like, oh no, don't worry about it. Oh, I've gotta go. We're getting raided by the government. Oh no. You're just like, caught.

Oh God. Like, I just hope in her next life, this fictional character caught a fucking break. Like, it just is so, but yeah, I don't know. Like, it's so tragic what happens to her, but I don't know. I mean, I thought that the movie showed a lot of care

and thought towards her in a way that I wasn't used to in this genre. Totally, I agree. And I was, I mean, the moments that were the most gut wrenching to me were surrounding the Betty character because she's just so abused and neglected by her husband, by her children. She just seems to be kind of waiting on people hand and foot

and no one is grateful and no one checks in with her and no one cares about how she feels. It seems like except for Joni. Right, right. And Mariel is again too busy wrapped up in her own image and getting married to whoever will marry her to notice all the things that's going on with her mother. And it's just, oh, it's devastating. But so there's this moment where her dad, Bill, is like, you have to stay and help me raise the kids. And Muriel's like, no, I don't.

That's actually your job as a parent, so goodbye. And she leaves. She goes to Rhonda's house, who, like we mentioned before, is hanging out with Tanya. She's basically been kidnapped. Like, I think her mom is like forcing her to hang out with Tanya. She's basically been kidnapped. I think her mom is forcing her to hang out with these assholes. Yes.

And Miriel comes in and she asks Rhonda to move back to Sydney with her. And Rhonda, who is still upset with Miriel, is like, well, OK, I forgive you. Let's go. And they get in a cab and the movie ends with the two of them yelling out the car windows, saying like, goodbye to the streets and the malls

and the beaches of porpoise spit. The end. So let's take another quick break and we'll come back to discuss further. And we're back. And we're back. Will, we've already talked about a lot of elements of the movie in the abstract. That was, by the way, kudos on the recap.

That was not an easy recap. No, it wasn't. I tried to make it as concise as possible, but again, just so much happened. There's so many tonal and narrative shifts throughout this movie that it was difficult, but I did my best. You did a wonderful job. Oh, thank you so much. There is one thing I just wanted to add to the tale,

and I guess that could get a conversation started, or not, whatever, but with her dad towards the end of the movie. I think the last scene he appears in, where, like you said, like he's like Muriel, you're gonna have to raise your adult siblings for me. And she's like, no, I don't think so, pretty sure that you should have been doing that

for 20 something years at this point. But that her dad, I don't even know how to feel about it because he is like, it seems like he has a moment of self-awareness that I didn't think he was capable of having, so I was a little bumped by it. It sort of felt like it was like time to need a bow on it where he, it seems like the person that we've spent time with this whole time would be like,

well go fuck yourself, goodbye forever, or like be cruel. But yeah, so this felt a little schmaltzy for me, but I did think it was an interesting choice, that he kind of has this moment of lucidity, and is like, you reap what you sow, it is basically admitting like, everyone is leaving me because I have been nothing but selfish, which again, just like really packs a gut punch

for when Joni calls down to him a character who he is also abused and lambasted as much as he has to anyone else in the family. And she's like, what can I get for you? And it just seems like she's mimicking the behavior that she saw in her mom of taking care of people even when they're horrible to you. And I don't know, I mean, again,

it's a very sad note to leave things on. But I guess, I don't know, can we talk a little bit more about her mom? Yeah, please. Just because, I mean, so much of the movie, the end of it becomes about her mom. Where we were getting at this in the recap where it's such a complicated thing

because it's very clear that Betty is so struggling with depression and it seems like she uses denial as a tool to get through the day, basically. And then the reference that she had been taking sleeping pills for a while, which is also possibly a self-medication technique. Her life was not easy and she had been conditioned to believe that no one was ever going to care about it. But that also, I mean, it's a tricky and I guess I'll just leave it at this because I don't know how to properly have this conversation really. But how her being put in this horrible position

by her abusive husband also means that her self-medicating and sort of willfully, passively allowing him to continue his reign of terror has a negative effect on her kids. And it's tricky because I don't want to victim blame her. But in parental situations like that especially, it's so hard to talk about, because there's like a wounded part of me that's like,

well isn't she kind of enabling this abuse towards her children by never calling it out when it's happening right in front of her? Which of course is an offshoot of her being abused and probably fear of retaliation from her husband and all of these horrible things. But in the same way, I mean it's just a very sad situation to see because it's like the father is laying into any

of his kids at any given opportunity and she's very often right there and kind of pretends it isn't happening or will say something behind his back but not to, it's just really sad to see a family that's like so thoroughly abused, especially by someone as narcissistic as Bill who will turn on the charm anytime someone who isn't his family is in the room.

And I think, I mean, it's effective because it's so emblematic of real dynamics. I think, like, we're so used to watching Hollywood movies that often like sugarcoat these things or ignore them or if there is an abusive family dynamic, it's portrayed in this tropey way or like jokey or cartoonish way or something. And this being like an indie Australian movie.

Right. We were like, oh, this actually resembles authentic human dynamics. Imagine. Obviously not all of them, but like, this is, this is a familiar dynamic that I've observed in other people. I mean, there are, it's not a one for one,

but I kind of saw a little bit of my family in this. Sure, likewise, likewise. Where like my dad is a narcissist. He was not outwardly cruel to my siblings and I, but he was certainly like emotionally negligent. And then like my mom would try to challenge it sometimes, but usually it was easier for her to just kind of like power through and do the best by her kids if she could. And I feel like we weren't always as grateful as we should have been for our mom's

attempts at keeping things stable in the household, and we didn't do a great job of considering how she might be feeling and stuff like that. Yeah, so I was like, oh, there's some familiar stuff. I've experienced variations of this in my own life. Yeah, it reminds me a lot of an aunt and uncle that I spent a lot of time with, where it's just, and how it is portrayed as like,

you know, on a long enough timeline, this is just normal for them. Like, this is just how, and I think it is, the movie doesn't bash you over the head with it, but that Muriel is just, anytime she's near her father, until the very end when he realizes that, you know, he has no more power to exert over her. She's not going to go back

because she's concerned about her mom because her mom isn't there. She is no longer financially obligated. Like she's extracted herself from this cycle of abuse that her family's caught in. I think it's sad and realistic that the whole family is not liberated from it, at least not right away.

But anyways, towards the beginning where he calls her lazy, he points out, like, I spent all this money on her and she can't even type. And she's like, yes, I can. And he's like, no, you can't. He body shames her. And it seems like her response to that is just like she's tremendously depressed.

The second she leaves, her life, I mean it's a mess because she's like 21 or whatever, but she immediately gets a job. She immediately is able to do, live independently in the way that her dad would tell her every day she couldn't possibly do. And it's like, like right because being away from that

energy and that horribleness is What would allow you to just be a person and it's just it's like the storytelling does that so effortlessly where it literally is like cut to her having a job that she likes because You could do that in the 90s, I think But but I just thought it was like really, yeah, the dad is the source of terror is just like so clear. Right. And it also informs probably why she puts up with the abuse from Tanya and all of those women who are so cruel to her because when you've become accustomed to abuse,

then you, going back to my family, like my mom was raised by a very abusive mother and she has said to me many, many times, like that's why I married your dad who was like not good to me but that's what I knew like that I was I tolerated it because that's really all I understood so you have the sense that Mariel hangs out with these women who are outwardly cruel to her because she has just become accustomed to this abuse from her father. And then she starts to,

I mean, it takes her a little while to liberate herself from it, but this friendship with Rhonda is, like you said, the catalyst that gets her on a path of liberation. And that's like the core of the movie as far as like I read it, is like, you know, as far as like Muriel's arc. I wanted to get into that a little bit because,

again, Muriel Starrt-Sall is this person who's lying to people, she's stealing dresses, she's trying to fit in with this crowd who doesn't want her, she ends up marrying a guy who seems repulsed by her just so she can say she's gotten married. She's like basically living a false life. Meanwhile throughout this she has made one actual friend in Rhonda. She's the one person in Mariel's life aside from her mom who accepts Mariel for who she is. Rhonda doesn't tolerate Mariel being like dishonest and phony and we see her call Mariel out for that but when she's being

an honest genuine person Rhonda loves Muriel for who she is. But when Rhonda needs her the most, Muriel abandons her in favor of this wedding and all the attention she's getting. Yeah, because she's finally living out this fantasy. And then Muriel's arc culminates, partly because she sees how horrible her father is being at her mother's funeral. She realizes that she's living this sham life, that she's been,

you know, as disingenuous as her shitty father, and then she leaves it all behind to reunite with Rhonda, which is like a very interesting story and not one that you generally see because one, it shows a woman who's a mess in a way that again, just feels authentic to real life. Yeah, it's not misogynist. It's just like you are given all the information that you need to understand. However misguided and occasionally very selfish what Muriel is doing is,

you understand where it's coming from and you're rooting for her to do better. And again, I kinda love how the movie teases you with a potentially really shitty ending right at the end where she opens the church door and her fake husband's there and he maybe likes her now. But, and I think again, like a lesser movie would be like, oh, they're gonna fall in love.

But then she, but it's like the strongest she ever is that she's like, I don't love you. Like I, you know, it's, and you're just like woohoo. And he's like, I don't love you either, but you could live with me. And she's like, no. No, I deserve more than that. I really love that moment.

Yeah, that she's able to see, I don't know. I mean, god, may everyone be so lucky to realize in their early 20s that they're repeating the mistakes of their parents. And I was like, yeah, in some ways it is a fantasy film. I'm sure some people have managed to do it. Yeah, but I mean, yeah, her friendship with Rhonda is so life-changing and so like life-affirming. Yeah, right, because like we see Mariel being a mess

for the bulk of the movie, but it's very different from that like rom-com version, like Hollywood rom-com version of a woman who's a mess quote unquote, because that always feels very cartoony, entropie, and it's like she's a mess because she's single. And she works too much at her magazine job, and that's why she's single.

And she just needs a boyfriend to cure her messiness. And we don't get any of that with the Miriel character. And that's another thing that's so interesting about this movie, because so many movies from this era that center a woman as the protagonist are about her finding hetero love and that being the thing that fulfills her. But this movie is about her personal growth

and her solid friendship, or like perhaps because of a solid friendship with another woman who supports her and cares for her. And for that, it's a great movie. Exactly, exactly. I mean, and also that, I mean, it almost makes like the title, the title is basically a joke where, you know, she becomes, I mean, she becomes disabused of all of these things, because it is basically a coming of age movie of everything that she's told is going to like make her the right kind of person, which at the beginning of the movie, she so badly wants to be,

to the point that she's being very, or she's been conditioned, I don't wanna like put it all on her, but like she's being very self destructive in pursuit of being anybody but herself. And marriage is the ultimate way to become a different person in the way that she's been socially conditioned, which still happens, right?

And it's like she's at her saddest when she's trying on wedding dresses. She's at her least authentic when she's getting married, and at her kind of cruelest to the people in her life. She blows off her mom, she ignores Rhonda, and then does this sort of really condescending, like, oh no, I don't want you to hang out with us. I got you a plane ticket.

And then she was like, fuck you. So she's at her worst when she's living out her fantasy. And it's a little broad, but it also, it just like, it works so well in the story of like, maybe Muriel will get married someday, but not for the reasons that she did the first time, because it seems like she really is at least well on her way to understanding that that is,

and I think unfortunately through a lot of tragedy and seeing how tremendously depressed her mother was until the end of her life and just knowing that like she had to move forward another way to do right by herself and honestly I think to some extent do right by her mom's memory too. Mm-hmm, mm-hmm. I think that it is like, I feel like, we're the attribute to her mom to liberate herself from this dynamic that her mom was trapped in. I know.

And then Rhonda, I just love this broad. She's so great. But let's talk about Rhonda. I mean, she, I don't know, it is really, I love seeing friends become friends really fast in a convincing way. I love just all of it. And they're like, yep, we're gonna move in together.

We're best friends now, blah, blah, blah. She's really horny. She's having three ways with sailor, American sailors, wha, wha. But let's talk about yeah this is a character who is able-bodied at the beginning of the movie and is disabled at the end of the movie she's using a wheelchair permanently which yeah let's let's talk about it. I mean this one's a little trickier than our than most of our conversations surrounding disability because it's often a character who from the moment we see them on screen

till the end of the movie, they are disabled that entire span. Yeah, McCullough time, Macaulay Culkin and saved. Right. Is my go-to example. Right, played by an able-bodied actor, which is often the case, which is what warrants the criticism. In this case, it's a little trickier because she is able-bodied for,

I'd say like the first half of the time we see her on screen. I think so, yeah. So it makes the casting trickier. I'm inclined to give this a little bit of a pass or at least some leeway because of the circumstances of her being an able-bodied character for part of it, but it's tricky.

It's tricky. I am inclined to agree. I would love to hear what our disabled listeners feel about this character, because obviously we are not the be-all, end-all opinion of this. Of course. I don't feel qualified to make the call but I think as as far as how Aranda is written I was like particularly for 1994 pretty impressed with again it seems to push back on some popular tropes around disability where you know at the beginning when I mean just the medical frustration that we have both experienced versions of,

of being talked to either like you're a baby or a scientist by a doctor and nothing in between. And Rhonda again, because she's just a very blunt person, Muriel's like, what is he saying? She's like, he's saying I'm like fucked, but he can't say that. And seeing her frustrations and you know, Muriel saying something that is coming from a good place,

but it's something we hear a lot around disability of like, no Rhonda, you're going to walk, you're going to walk again, which is her encouraging Rhonda and doesn't want her to lose hope, which is totally fair. But I think also buys into this idea that an able-bodied life is the only one worth having or the only one to strive towards.

And even though it's not addressed explicitly, Rhonda, as time, when we flash forward, Rhonda is understandably, tremendously frustrated and sad when she loses the use of her legs and struggles with it. But it seems like she's ultimately more frustrated that she has to move home than anything else. And by the time we see Rhonda at Marielle's wedding, she seems comfortable in her wheelchair.

It's just how other people talk to her and treat her. That's the problem. Where it seems like when she gets past the initial shock and adjustment of living with a disability, that it's mainly other people who are the problem. We see it in a so much casual ableism that is explicit in the movie. And it's like played for laughs

to make the person doing it look bad. Because it's the ladies in the dress shop where, oh my God, what was the, and like Rhonda's like, get the fuck out of my way. Where she said, you just can't come in here and threaten brides. I don't care how unfortunate you are. And Rhonda says, fuck you,

which is the only response to that sentence. There's a moment with Rhonda's mother where Rhonda's like, I don't wanna sit in the front of the wedding because she doesn't really wanna be there is the reason. But Rhonda's mom is very casually like, well, good, you won't be in anyone's way. And then I think the most over the top example

is the evil friends talking to her like she has died and her being like, I'm not ditched, Cheryl. Right, because one of them says something like, you were so full of life, and it's like, I still am. Here I am. Just because I'm disabled now doesn't change that. And she's also telling them that she's beat cancer, which is like amazing like But yeah, we see her encounter a lot of like

quiet and loud ableism throughout the movie and it's always pushed back on and throughout the movie and it's always pushed back on and again it's just like I'm sure that it is not a perfect depiction by any means but I appreciated that it was even acknowledged because I feel like so many movies just perpetuate ableism and don't acknowledge that like this is a problem that this is a problem that able-bodied people don't know how to talk to anybody who isn't like them. Totally. Yeah, I think for a movie from the mid-90s, it does surprisingly well in that regard. This is a separate topic which we can move on to or address later. But I was kind of reminded the same way that characters are hurling ableist macro or micro aggressions

at Rhonda, there are examples of white characters committing racist aggressions in a way that the movie tends to seem to present it as like, look at this foolish person saying this foolish thing, but at the same time, the movie has a cast of almost exclusively white people and certainly only gives interiority to the white characters.

So it kind of undermines the spotlight on, oh, look how foolish this racist person is. But yeah, there's like, there's, I don't wanna get too specific because some of them are really gross, but. It's mostly anti-Asian racism. I was noticing a lot of anti-Asian racism and also anti-Indigenous racism.

Yeah, right, because there's a reference to Bill doing a real estate development project on land that Aboriginal people had been living on and those Indigenous people were displaced so that a resort or something could be built. And then Bill is talking about this and carrying on as though, I deserve recognition for the great work I did to build

this you know development and it's just like completely dismissing the you know the violence and displacement toward the aboriginal people who we don't see on screen or never meet any aboriginal people in this movie so it's we do we We do meet Aboriginal people in the other movie that stars that actor that came out that year. Yes, which we discussed and you can go back and listen. Which also has its own problems. But yeah, no, I felt like, you know, the reason for me, and again, it's not for me to make this call,

but part of the reason that I didn't find the movie to be tremendously ableist is because we have a disabled character who we love and who pushes back against the ableism and loves and accepts herself. It's the circumstance she's frustrated with. But with the, it seems like they're trying to go for a similar thing, but it's like if your cast is all white, except in very passing interactions, then those jokes are not gonna land, at least for us, not particularly

well because there's no one there to push back on it. So it's just like, haha, they are racist, which is not a particularly effective joke. Yeah, I agree. It's like, yeah, you can say, well, we hate those characters, and this is just another reason to hate them, but it's like, well, we already hated them. Like again, if you want to go there,

if that's the route you wanna go, don't only cast white people, because it's like, is the racism in the room with us? Kind of vibe. Yeah, for sure. Not to say that, I mean, you know, I'm not accusing the director of being racist. I'm just like, you need representation of,

more than white people, obviously, but also like, those jokes aren't going to land in an all white cast. And it's like silly to expect them to. Right, to the point where you're not even sure what the intent was with those jokes. It's like, is it to call out the white people for being racist or are we supposed to be laughing along

with the joke? Because the movie doesn't make that super, super clear. In 1994, I don't know what the answer is. It's anyone's guess. Right, so yeah, no, I totally agree with you. And that's unfortunate because I think that like, by writing Rhonda's character so thoughtfully that like this movie is able to push back on a lot of ableist tropes.

So it's unfortunate that it sort of just plays into lazier tropes around racism. Yeah. Also wanted to talk about the body shaming and fat shaming that particularly Muriel's character is subjected to different family members and friends of hers or former friends, fat shame her.

But then you also learn that Tony Collette gained weight for the role. And not that I don't want Tony Collette to get roles, especially star making roles like this, but productions throughout history have had a bad habit of not casting fat actors or just actors of varying body sizes. And instead either casting an actor and then requiring that they gain weight or putting them in a fat suit.

Which also feels, I mean, we unfortunately don't need to go back very far in movie history because this still very much happens. Oh yeah. It was a lot of the discourse surrounding the whale which won Brendan Fraser a fucking Oscar. I don't know, I mean, we've had this conversation on the show before,

but I was disappointed to learn that. Not shocked, given the 1994 of it all, but certainly disappointed, because it's just like, Tony Collette is tremendously talented, so are actors that aren't rail thin, you know? Like, if this is canon to this character who we love, are actors that aren't rail thin, you know? If this is canon to this character who we love, cast accordingly, you know?

Right, there are available actors of all sizes, and if the role requires an actor to be a certain size, there's already an actor who's that exact size that could have been cast without requiring that they make any changes to their body. Absolutely. And it's so wild because it's just like, but although I guess you couldn't make a movie in 1994 in Australia without this guy Bill. So Bill has to be, there's only like,

sometimes when you see Australian movies, I'm like, are there 10 working actors in this country? Like what is going on? Bill is in all of them. That's so wild. Yeah, it's, I mean, and good for him, but. Yeah, no, but I'm glad that you pointed that out because I was also like, I need to do more research.

And then the research made me sad. Yes. Many such cases. Let me see. That's like, I think most of what I had. I didn't have much else. We covered a lot of stuff during the recap. I think the last thing that I wanted to just include was a quote from a piece from The

Guardian by an Australian writer named Karen Pickering, who wrote kind of like a retrospective review in 2017 about this movie entitled, Maryal's Wedding is a Feminist Masterpiece and More Relevant Than Ever. She doesn't go quite as like intersectional as our discussion has been, but she does point out a lot of the positives, which I tended to agree with. So I'll just share a few quick paragraphs from this.

Quote, lots of little moments resonate with me as a feminist observer. Rhonda is totally and unapologetically sex positive and when her casual sex partners think a guy is taking advantage of Mariel they intervene on her behalf. Bryce is an example of gentle respectful and warm masculinity which you could maybe because of how strong he comes on, you could maybe disagree with that. But anyway, yeah, well David is positively influenced in this direction by Mariel. Also maybe up for debate. Undoubtedly, patriarchy is the decisive factor in creating Mariel's reprehensible

dad in the behavior of her hapless siblings, in the power differential between her mother and father, and even in the despicable Deidre Chambers, just a sad woman in a bad man's world. I guess that we didn't really talk about Deidre, but I don't have that much to say other than it seems like she is coded as like, here's a woman who will step on anyone

to achieve some notoriety or comfort, such as participating in MLMs. And I mean, also, oh, oh, I wanted to bring this up in the conversation about Muriel's mother, about Betty. What Deidre says about her towards the end of the movie, where Deidre says, again, just because Betty, even from beyond the grave, is being punished by her piece of shit ex-husband, says like,

oh, you know, this is gonna make Bill look a lot more sympathetic in the press, so at least her life had a purpose. And I was like. You fucking asshole. It should have been you! Like I just, oh, I like, my blood was, I don't know how, someone said that about my mom

and our relationship's up and down. But like, I would hit someone. That's like, oh my God, how did Deirdre not take one to the fucking nose on that? That was like, ugh. I don't know, but that was despicable. I respect what the writer is saying and it's true. I'm sure it's like canonically true, but I'm like,

no, I hate that bitch. I hate that bitch. Yeah, no, she's awful. Just to finish out this quote, the writer goes on to say, Bill Heslop exemplifies a particularly Australian strain of toxic masculinity. He's macho, corrupt, racist, cruel to his children, and wholly abusive to his poor wife.

The most likable he ever gets is when he's grudgingly impressed by Miriel giving him the what for before she leaves. I don't know if that's an Australian expression, but I don't know what the what for is. The what for, I think it's just like standing up to him kind of. That makes sense.

Finally, and how can we understand her beautiful tragic mom without factoring in the misogyny and sexism that's kept her in this home full of people who treat her so badly? But in Muriel's case, it's also a patriarchal fantasy that keeps her alive, the dream that one day she'll be a success because someone will want to marry her."

And yeah, I think that's the last thing I wanted to just touch a little bit more on as far as this idea of, and Mariel's not alone in this. I've met people throughout my life who were, who cared more about getting married than who they married or like, everything was focused on the wedding. The wedding's the happiest day of your life and it's like, well, what about the relationship after that or like.

But what I really appreciate about this movie is that I think that a lot of, even like movies that are ostensibly feminist, and not to say that this doesn't happen, because sure it does. Some people are simply vapid, right? It happens across the gender spectrum. But I think that sometimes when particularly a woman is perceiving marriage this way,

movies that sort of tout themselves and pat themselves on the back for their own feminism are like, look at this fucking loser who's not like cool and feminist, like the main character who has never made a mistake in response to patriarchy. Like it's like what makes me really appreciate Muriel even more is that she's drank the Kool-Aid

and a lot of people drink the Kool-Aid and some people even drink the Kool-Aid and get married and then realize, fuck. I mean, it's really hard to, against a culture that is still this adamant about marriage. For sure. And then also, I mean, whatever, we've talked about marriage plenty on the show,

but I just really appreciate it and it felt rare that, you know, I think when we see movies that surround women and weddings, very often it's just like, she's getting married. It's like done with the assumption that's like, and of course we know this is the most important day of her life, and blah, blah, blah, blah, it's just like assuming that you have drank the Kool-Aid. And then there's movies that I think are like,

corny, bad, 2010s feminism that are like, any woman who wants to get married is an agent of the patriarchy. Where it's like, the truth is always going to be somewhere in the middle there. And with Muriel, it's like she's being disabused of this really patriarchal structure that is all she knows. And it's not until she escapes and lives a little bit and connects with someone on a deeper level through Rhonda that she's able to realize, and until she literally gets what she wants

and it's horrible that she's like, well, I'm gonna get out while I can. And maybe she will find love down the line and we'll get married, maybe she won't, but it's cool to see someone be disabused of that and still have the movie be like, holy on their side, because it's a journey a lot of people have to go on. Definitely, and yeah, I don't blame people

for having been conditioned to disproportionately value getting married, or just like the idea of getting married, or the idea of having a wedding, because there's an entire you know bazillion dollar industry built around that there's. And not for nothing we love going to weddings. And as far as to your wedding. Yeah.

But yeah I mean so much of patriarchy does condition people and especially women to strongly value the idea of getting married and not even like, not like having a marriage and having a meaningful relationship with a companion, it's just like, you gotta get married, the subtext, according to the patriarchy is like, become a man's property. according to the patriarchy is like, become a man's property.

Right, and then the whole lie that you're sold in these like, comphet structure is that as a woman, you will become a more, the most complete version of yourself when you get married to a man. And so I think with every feminist movement that the conception of marriage has been sort of adjusted or like altered by the right to make this very conservative notion.

And I mean, I'm fucking getting married next year. Like you have a fiance. I have a fiance, but it's because I simply really want to marry him. I'm excited about it, which is like, then do it. But yeah, I feel like people, the way that people sell, particularly young women on marriage by preying on their self-esteem is, and during like second wave feminism of like,

no, actually being married is a way to be self-actualized. You're like, shut the fuck up, dude. Like, you know, it's just interesting watching the new scams that people come up with. But you know, Muriel sees through the matrix at the end of the movie and realizes that friendship is the true wedding or something. No, that's exactly it.

And that's why I really appreciate this movie. Again, like, yes, she has more maturing to do. She, you know, needs to learn how to be a more honest person but it's this caring, supportive friendship with her friend Rhonda. I keep wanting to call her Rodna. I don't even think that's a name. That's a cool name.

Rodna, it's Rhonda. I'm just having a bit of a brain thing today, but Rhonda is, yeah, the thing that she, having a bit of a brain thing today, but that's okay. But Rhonda is, yeah, the thing that she, that Muriel needed to see the light. I love it. Yeah, and just seeing, especially with, I guess the last thing I'll say about Rhonda and Muriel

is that, you know, Rhonda, part of what draws them to each other is they really admire each other. And, you know, and that even after Muriel kind of exposes herself as like, I've been lying to you, Rhonda's upset about it, she's hurt, but it doesn't make her think Muriel isn't awesome. Yeah.

And that is like a true friend of like, you know, and not everyone would do that. And maybe they would be right to, right? That's a pretty big lie, but she's like, okay, fine. So Tim Sims wasn't real, you're still cool. Like, just like. Well, cause in that moment, Muriel explains why she made Tim Sims up.

She's like, I hate myself. And if I was marrying someone, I could be a different person and I would love a different person, which like my and probably wouldn't even be true. Like, no, I mean, well, we learned that's not true because she marries some guy and it's miserable. Right. So the way that she actually will love herself has nothing to do with marriage or being with a man or anything like that. She lays all this out and Rhonda, she hears that, she sees that and she's like, this is still a person worthy of my friendship and like probably needs my help.

They like need each other. They need each other for sure. I love them. I love them. This movie passes the Bechtel test, obviously. A lot, yes. Lots of different combinations of characters, talking about all kinds of stuff.

There are discussions about men. Some of them are made up. Oh, does it pass the Bechtel test if they're talking about Tim Sims? Who's not a real person? Feminist icon Tim Sims. We don't know how Tim Sims identifies. We don't.

Because Tim Sims is made up. Tim Sims is a cop, so he's his. He, him, Tim Sims. We hate to hear it. Anyways, okay, yeah, it passes a lot. And honestly, most of the interactions about men are pretty anti-men. I don't think this movie has a very high opinion of men,

and that's why I trust it. Wow, Titanic. I don't think we've ever thrown that line in before, so for your consideration. It doesn't make any sense. That's why I dressed it. Did you catch my Summer Heights High reference from like two hours ago?

Oh my God! The curly haired beach. Yeah. Jermay. Yeah, oh yeah, that's probably, no that's a Jermay, no that's not Summer Heights High, right, right, right. It's a Jermay. I mix it up, yeah, Jermay meant a lot to me. Well, I mean, it's a Jame. I mix it up, yeah, Jame meant a lot to me.

Well, I mean, same spelling, different pronunciation? I think so, just like there's an accent mark, I think. But yeah, so it passes the Bechdel's as handily. Yeah. So, but what about the one perfect metric, the nipple scale? Oh, you mean our scale where we rate the movie on a scale of zero to five nipples

based on looking at the movie through an intersectional feminist lens. Why, yes I do. Well, in that case. I'll give this, I'm like between, I wanna say like a three and a half, maybe edging toward a four. There's a lot of the, I think this movie handles well. There's a few things that I'm a little dicey on that I think are very, you know, criticism

about how the movie handles like the racist microaggressions that different characters hurl at people and the discussion around ableism and the discussion around body and body size those are a little iffier, but because this movie at its core is about two women forming a friendship that is just like sweet and it's not the healthiest friendship on account of Miriel lying a lot, but she learns not to do that.

But she's working on it. She's working on it. And that's the thing too, like there's so few movies about a messy woman who's messy in a way that actually feels like real life and that needs to learn and not be dishonest, not be lying to people, et cetera. Because movies and society ever heard of it, expect women to be these perfect little angels who are not allowed to misbehave in any way

and who have to just be born perfect and we have very little tolerance for messy women and I love to see a movie about a messy woman but I also love to see a movie about a messy woman growing because messy people should grow and learn and that's what this movie is all about. So I really appreciate it and I'll land on like three point seven five nipples and I'll distribute them between

Tony Collette the actor who plays Rhonda Rachel Griffiths and Tim Sims imaginary And Tim Simms, imaginary fiance. Imaginary king. Yeah, I'm gonna go 3.75 as well.

I agree, particularly with regards to the racism and asking a, I mean, Tony Collette was not famous at this time, but having an actor gain weight instead of simply just- Casting an actor who's already the size of the character. Yeah. Basically everything else about this movie, I was really pleasantly surprised by.

I was really blown away. It's a really funny, memorable movie about the cycle of trauma in families. And I still laughed so much. And you could never predict what's gonna happen next in this movie. I love, love, love just a story about yeah like being liberated through friendship but still being a messy 21 22 year old like it just yeah she feels so real and the

performances are amazing and I just feel like it's like this weird awesome commentary on it's the exact opposite of what the poster leads you to believe right it's going to be and I really love that I got gotten big time this movie got our asses because even though like I mean I'm sort of wondering if they were trying to market it as like because this is kind of a hard sell to your average rom-com goer to be like, it's the most depressing thing you'll ever see. Prepare to not feel escaped from reality at all. Because the the poster says a comedy about

a small town girl who didn't fit in, but is about to learn how to stand out Muriel's wedding. She's not just getting married. She's getting even I'm like, that doesn't feel like the movie. I feel like they were just trying to be like, it's a movie about a wedding, go see it. Just trick people into going, because it is a tricky sell, but I think it's awesome. Yeah, so I'm gonna do 3.75 nipples.

I'm gonna give them to Toni Collette. I'm gonna give one to Jocelyn Moore and Linda House, who were the other two producers of this movie, were women. I'm gonna give one to Jocelyn Moore and Linda House, who were the other two producers of this movie, were women. I'm gonna give one to editor Jill Billcock, who also, who's just an Australian legend, also edited Strictly Ballroom, Romeo Plus Juliet, Anne Moulin Rouge,

and oh my God, Kate Blanchett, another Australian legend. She also edited the Kate Blanchettett Queen Elizabeth movie from the 90s. So I'll give one to her and then I'll give my last point five. Yeah, you know what, I'm going to give it to Tim Sims as well because he had me in the first act. Then it turns out he was a vengeful cop. Oh, okay. Wait, I take back my Tim Sims nipple and I'm'm gonna, yeah, sorry, I forgot that he's a cop. Well, I won't. But I'm gonna give.

He's not real. He's not real. But I do wanna. I don't want Tim Sims to get any bright ideas. I do want to distribute some of my nipples to Maryl's mom and her sister, Joanie. Yes, Betty and Joi, I really, and meanwhile I'm the person that just screamed

they're not real. I am so, I just hope that Muriel calls Joni regularly. I was worried for Joni at the end. I don't want Joni to get stuck in that pattern of abuse with her dad because it's not like he's going to ever improve. I'm like, Jonanie, I'm assuming you're an adult. Like, it's hard to tell how old people were in the 90s.

Because they weren't using SPF. Sunblock and they were ripping cigs. But like, my heart really went out to Joanie. Yeah, I hope she moves. But I'm still keeping my nipples with Tim Sims. That is fine. I allow it. And with that, listeners, thank you so much. For those of you who have been frothing at the mouth for this Mariel's wedding episode, I know it's some of you at least. Yeah.

Hope you enjoyed it. We really enjoyed putting it together. Yeah, we hope it was worth the wait, because this was a blast Yeah, it was a prospect on our wedding web you airy Month last year. Yeah, and it didn't quite make the cut but here it is on the main feed. So yeah What now what what now but speaking of the main feed versus our? Matri on it's something you should subscribe to you can go to patreon.com

slash spectral cast it's five dollars a month you get two bonus episodes on amazing themes such as wedding webuary what a bargain and uh plus you get access to the entire back catalog. So check that out. Check out our link tree, our letterbox. You know, give us five nipples on your listening platform, all that good stuff. Follow us on Instagram and most of all, follow your heart. And with that listeners, let's get in the car and... Oh, we say it, we buy buy by street. Bye shopping mall. I cried by surfer boys. Bye Los Angeles.

Goodbye. Porpoise spit what it just I'd live there. No, I wouldn't know horrible place. Goodbye porpoise spit. Bye bye. horrible place. Goodbye, poor Pissvet. Bye bye. The Bechtel cast is a production of iHeartMedia hosted by Caitlin Durante and Jamie Loftus, produced by Sophie Lichterman,

edited by Mo Laborde. Our theme song was composed by Mike Caplan with vocals by Catherine Voskrasensky. Our logo and merch is designed by Jamie Loftus. And a special thanks to Aristotle Acevedo. For more information about the podcast, please visit linktree.bechtelcast.