Review: Dismal Keanu Reeves-Winona Ryder pairing in ‘Destination Wedding’ dooms Keanona from ever being a thing
Keanu Reeves and Winona Ryder may have worked together in the past (most notably in “Bram Stoker’s Dracula”), but “Destination Wedding,” a painfully indulgent anti-romantic comedy about a pair of miserable misanthropes who bond over their shared contempt of the universe, forces their screen chemistry well beyond any reasonable limits of tolerance.
He’s Frank, a marketing director for J.D. Power with a chronic sinus problem. She’s Lindsay, a prosecutor of “companies and institutions for culturally sensitive actions or speech,” who believes that breathing on her plants will boost photosynthesis.
The nonstop bickering/pontificating begins the moment they cross paths at the airport, where it’s hate at first sight, only to discover they’re both headed to the same weekend wedding in Paso Robles, with the groom happening to be both Lindsay’s ex-fiance and Frank’s half-brother.
It also turns out that they’re the only characters with speaking parts and they both speak in the same verbose writer’s voice — belonging to that of filmmaker Victor Levin — although Reeves sees fit to deliver his lines with an odd Rod Serling-inflection.
Over the course of a stubbornly unfunny 86 minutes that feels a lot longer, the excursion may well resemble a trip into “The Twilight Zone,” but while Team Glum & Glummer clearly deserve each other, their audience deserves much better.
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‘Destination Wedding’
Rating: R, for language throughout and sexual content
Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes
Playing: Starts Aug. 31, AMC Burbank Town Center 8; Laemmle Monica Film Center, Santa Monica
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