Then again, these faintly uncomfortable attitude towards the homoerotic subtext is just one facet of The Wedding Ringer‘s decidedly mean-spirited outlook.
More than that, the script convolutes the narrative to provide both Jimmy and Doug with paper-thin female love interests by the end credits, as if to assure viewers that this is a bromance, not a romance. Instead, man-on-man contact is treated as a stock joke when it turns out that Doug is a smooth dancer. Early on, Jimmy institutes a strict “no hugging” rule to minimise contact with his clients the rule remains in place even as Jimmy softens to Doug. Instead, the movie feels quite awkward about its central dynamic. The film is careful enough to include a prominent gay supporting character, serve its biggest homophobe some poetic justice, and even photoshop Jimmy into a gay wedding, but these feel like token gestures. However, there is something quite uncomfortable about the lengths to which The Wedding Ringer will go to assert its aggressive heterosexuality. At its core, The Wedding Ringer is a film about a guy having to choose between his wife and his new male best friend. However, it is weighed down by a clunky script and a decidedly mean-spirited world-view.Ī comedy with a set-up like The Wedding Ringer will inevitably have some homoerotic subtext. Kevin Hart works the material as best he can, and The Wedding Ringer works best when it allows itself to drift from its central premise. The Wedding Ringer sticks to its guns, hitting all the plot beats that one might expect from a movie espousing that philosophy. Instead, The Wedding Ringer never shifts its position. It seems like a stock stereotype that the movie is setting up to subvert – that Jimmy and Doug will eventually learn (in a “knowing is half the battle” sort of way) that marriage is a two-person enterprise that becomes shared at the moment of union. “Weddings are for the woman,” Jimmy assures his client, Doug Harris, in one scene. This is perhaps the most dialogue that The Wedding Ringer affords any female character in any one scene. Doris explains to Jimmy that male and female relationships work differently that it is tough for men to acknowledge emotion and to connect with one another.
At one point, professional best man Jimmy Callahan (head of “TBM – The Best Man Inc.”) is confronted by his assistant Doris Jenkins.
The Wedding Ringer comes packed with awkward gender truisms. The Wedding Ringer is an addition to the rapidly-growing subgenre that focuses on a stereotypically masculine perception of “the big day” – wondering what the groom makes of festivities. Producing a comedy about weddings can be something of a minefield it is very easy to play into the familiar gendered stereotypes the controlling fiancée or the disengaged husband-to-be.
The bromantic wedding comedy is a fairly reliable comedy subgenre but it is also one that requires a great deal of care.
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