Tag: Save the Date

Wedding Week: Another Indie Wedding…And Breakup in ‘Save the Date’

Written by Rachel Redfern
Lizzy Caplan and cat in Save the Date
Wanted: Emotionally unavailable girl struggling to realize her romantic potential. 

If that is what you’re looking for then Save the Date is here to realize such a fantasy. This is Michael Mohan’s sophomore film (One Too Many Mornings being the first), and it’s a solid second movie with great actors and a timely story.

Lizzy (Lizzy Caplan) just moved in with her boyfriend Kevin (Geoffrey Arend) of two years. One week later, he proposes; she freaks, then moves out, and it’s from there that the evolution of her relationships begin. During this time period, her sister Beth (Alison Brie) and her fiancé and band mate to Kevin, Andrew (Martin Starr), also travel the tricky waters that run to the great waterfall of marriage.

Thematically, the film focuses on the two men in Lizzy’s life, her ex Kevin, and her new boyfriend Jonathon (Mark Webber), and her obvious patterns of relationships; Save the Date is essentially a character study of one woman and her neuroses and the constant mistakes, fears, and decisions that she does manage to get right. She’s not always a completely sympathetic character, but she is still the one we’re rooting for at the end of the day.

This is the second time I’ve seen Lizzy Caplan in her easy portrayal of the emotionally damaged wild child, the first being in Bachelorette where similarly, the wedding brings up all of her feelings about past relationships and a surprise pregnancy. It’s a character I like, one that while not original, is also not the most common of characters (similar to Natalie Portman in Friends With Benefits, Charlize Theron in Sweet November). But I like the character; it’s one where, rather than neurotic, and desperately searching for love and marriage, she’s the opposite–skittish and non-committal, frustrating and sexy.

Caplan is obviously comfortable with the role and slips into emotionally distant behavior with an alacrity that is almost cringe-worthy. However, I think it’s valuable to see women and men in some role reversal; in Save the Date, Kevin is over-eager and anxious to please, while Lizzy barrels around, being incredibly sadly charming and then pulling away from relationships. 

Allison Brie and Martin Starr in Save the Date
Allison Brie is also lovely in her role as the more traditional, over-bearing sister. She’s impatient and snappy and obviously stressed about her wedding plans but also deeply invested in her sister. In fact, Save the Date removes many of the external friends for the two women and instead has the focus on the balance of their sibling relationship

It’s also productive that the film doesn’t attempt to explain away why Lizzy is so scared of relationships and why her sister is so excited to take hers to the next level. Rather, the two women are presented as flawed characters who just are who they are. Granted, the ending of the film seemed more focused on fixing Lizzy rather than on her own personal growth, but that’s perhaps a plot flaw more than anything.

And on that note, the plot is incredibly simple and slow. The conflict and resolution was easily anticipated and lacked any originality, even the present felt familiar. The film is very much in the ridiculously popular indie style, a style that I have to confess is starting to get a little old with its careful mullets, obscure acoustic tracks, and an ironic attempt to not take themselves too seriously but usually failing. 

Lizzy Caplan and Allison Brie in Save the Date
However, go to this film (or rent it at this point since it’s out on DVD) for the very familiar situations you’ll see, especially of note, Arend’s portryal of Kevin and his struggles with losing Lizzy. Often, romance films pit a “good guy” against a “complete and total lying, cheating bastard,” role that rarely allows for nuance and the complexities and context that accompany our mistakes. Instead, Kevin, Andrew and Jonathon are all different, but likable and sincere. They act like the adults I know, occasionally silly and naive when it comes to love but genuine in their attempts to do the right thing.

Lizzy and Beth as sisters get along perhaps a little too well for a normal sister relationship, but they’re also self-aware of their flaws and apologetic when they cross the line. Sometimes romantic comedies have a tendency to be over-the-top in their caricature of love, so much so that character interactions become excessively unrealistic. Save the Date re-captures some of its lost points for the slow plot with its commitment to showing more realistic interactions between couples and family.

But seriously, no more mullets in indie films. 

 


Rachel Redfern has an MA in English literature, where she conducted research on modern American literature and film and its intersection; however, she spends most of her time watching HBO shows, traveling, and blogging and reading about feminism.