Ceremony

Ceremony packs a coming of age movie, with a dysfunctional wedding, and a mustache all in one. But even more importantly is the directer/writer is Max Winkler. Name sound familiar? That is because it is Henry Winkler‘s son, in his first directing role.

I wonder how he’d rate this movie?

Two thumbs up? You rate everything that way.

The movie actually stars Michael Angarano (or that guy from Sky High who I can’t stop seeing everywhere), as a children’s book writer. He is friends with Reece Thompson (Rocket Science/Daydream Nation). They are good friends, but for some reason they haven’t been close for awhile. Mike gets the idea to go on a small retreat to talk about his book, and have Reece join him (because he can drive), but turns out he has other motives.

They end up crashing a wedding, but it turns out Mike knows who is involved. They meet the bride’s brother, Jake M. Johnson (New Girl), and some red head who keeps laughing at them, Rebecca Mader (Lost). But the bride? That is Uma Thurman (you should know who that is without a movie reminder).

So his plan is to ruin the wedding, more or less, and make Uma Thurman love him again. Surely this could not go wrong. Especially since he tries to also to make it seem like a coincidence to his friend, who is also fucked up. And how could he compete with Lee Pace, who is like way better than him at everything?

Well, everything except for mustaches.

The movie does a great job of going from comedy to drama about halfway through it. I thought the chemistry between the two men were great, and they made me laugh a whole bunch. But eventually serious time takes over, and they have to discuss real problems, and real issues. I felt like the shit hit the fan on multiple occasions in the second half. The ending might not be the one you’d expect, but it definitely feels like the right ending.

Reece’s character reminded me a bit of Cameron from Ferris Bueller’s Day Off, both in looks and general attitude. Seemed to be in a funk the whole time, until you know, he got out of it.

The two male leads were by far the best performances of this movie, and you can see how they change throughout and it is awesome. Uma Thurman does fine, as the highest billed, but its really not about her at all. So overall, I was pleasantly surprised at how real and awesome this movie felt.