Learn how your comment data is processed. Enter your email address to follow this blog and receive notifications of new posts by email. She sees the wedding as a great match for Dolly, who is to be shipped off to South America soon after. The circus of the family gathering is an acerbic, chaotic comedy, barreling forward with sarcastic bons mot and the occasional small explosion — not emotional outbursts, mind you, but literal explosions courtesy the Dakins' mischievous spawn. Trouble soon appears in the shape of Joseph, Dolly's lover from the previous summer, who throws her feelings into turmoil. The primary cause for her anxiety arrives in the form of Joseph (Luke Treadaway), a handsome young professor with whom Dolly had a fling during the preceding summer. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding ( 198 ) IMDb 5.7 1 h 32 min 2012 PG In this lighthearted and steamy romantic comedy, bride-to-be Dolly must choose between her devoted fiancee and the former lover she wants to seduce her I t doesn’t spoil much to say that Cheerful Weather for a Wedding contains little good weather and no wedding ceremony. It is about the disparate group of characters that always gather together at weddings, maiden aunts, dowager aunts, schoolboys and men of the cloth, all joining to celebrate a happy occasion. However, the film, adapted from a 1932 Julia Strachey novella praised and published by Leonard and Virginia Woolf, does begin with the promise of a turbulent main event. Recommended. Dolly’s sister Kitty is blessed with ugly hands or so we are told. I felt I only knew two characters well by the end - the mother of the bride, outrageous in her inability to empathise with anyone at all, and the 'other man'. It is also about convention, the convention of the time. But he left town at the end of the season, and Mrs. Thatcham sent Dolly off for a continental vacation, where she met — and quickly became engaged to — family friend Owen. Downstairs, her fiancé and her former lover grow increasingly anxious. She is forgetful, giving conflicting instructions to the servants then exasperated when things go wrong. Directed by Donald Rice. As John Russell remarks, it is pure comedy, 'dealt in a particular It is supposed to be Dolly Thatcham’s happiest day. Rice seems intent on blending the two into a bittersweet romantic comedy, and in one well-executed scene just before Dolly is to leave for the church, he beautifully combines a touch of slapstick with an emotional awkwardness that is both funny and affecting. I really loved this novella, even more so on my second reading. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. The comic relief, an attempt to buoy the sinking feeling of Dolly and Joseph's difficulties, steals away the emotional weight of their story. 1 Plot 2 Cast 3 Trailer 4 Gallery 5 Related Links England, 1932. There are a whole host of characters who walk in and out of the house, described briefly or in more detail. Joseph doesn’t think he is in love with Dolly but he’s not sure. But a re-read in 2013 underwhelmed me and I felt just irritated with most of the characters. If I’m honest, I have complex feelings about this book. There isn’t much that happens in this slim volume. Published by the Hogarth Press in 1932, it tells the story of a brisk March day in England, somewhere on the Dorset coast, during which Dolly is due to marry the Honourable Owen Bigham. I loved being that uninvited guest listening in on conversations and watching the preparations. Change ), You are commenting using your Facebook account. In the UK production Cheerful W… The movie does have some dry wit sprinkled throughout, and it reminded me a little of Gosford Park (2001) the way the story unfolded in a slice-of-life fashion. The dominance of the madcap side of the film's split personality lays an airy veneer over Dolly and Joseph's woes, making them seem inconsequential — as unsubstantial as an observation about wedding-day weather. And the weather of course. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is in fact an anti-comedy in the deep sense: at the end, feelings and purposes are out of harmony, and there is no sense of the generation of new life (whether quite literal, in the prospect of children that rises over a happy couple as they ride off on to their honeymoon, or more figurative). The most obvious exception is Owen, the groom. There's also a deaf old man who constantly misunderstands anything shouted his way; sex-obsessed teen boys; and a stuffy matriarch, Aunt Bella (Barbara Flynn), whose primary purpose (paging Maggie Smith) is to scowl and make catty remarks. She is resigned to marrying Owen, she doesn’t dislike but has realised in seeing Joseph, just how different her feelings are for the two men. Trouble soon appears in the shape of Joseph, Dolly's lover from the previous summer, who throws her feelings into turmoil. She is anxious about the choices she has made and is trying to figure out if this is what she wants, or if she has the gall to go through with something she doesn't want. Much to the chagrin of Dolly's mother (Elizabeth McGovern, right), Dolly's feelings imperil the plans she has for her daughter. She is, perhaps, a rather insipid woman, the majority of her speech and correspondence devoted to the vista where the house sits or the geography of the area. With Felicity Jones, Luke Treadaway, Elizabeth McGovern, James Norton. The put-upon David Dakin (Mackenzie Crook) and his sniping wife, Nancy (Fenella Woolgar), want to be anywhere other than here, and with anyone other than their fireworks-obsessed terror of a son. It says more for his absence, from the thoughts of his bride and his future mother-in-law of how he is deemed. Set in a large country house in Devon in the 1930s, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is about the difficult decision faced by a young woman on her wedding day. Julia Strachey (1901-79) was born in India and lived with relations in England after her parents divorced. But with so little interaction during the bulk of the movie, Rice's story, adapted from a 1932 novella by Julia Strachey, ends up spending as much time on the kooky antics of the family before the wedding. What follows seems just as aimed at a shared audience, with its lush period settings, passive-aggressive wit and even Elizabeth McGovern turning up to play, as she does on Downton, the mother of a family seemingly always poised just on the edge of social disaster. I read it decades ago and had happy memories of it. The bride, Dolly (Felicity Jones), is hiding out upstairs swigging rum, the wedding ring is missing, … Something to remedy in the future, I think…. Publication date – 23 April 2009. ( Log Out /  Watch: Trailer For Brit Pic 'Cheerful Weather For The Wedding' Starring Felicity Jones & Luke Treadaway They may not speak for months or years, only occasionally write or be forgotten about until the next occasion but on a wedding day people get dressed in their Sunday best and play a part. This short story takes place the day of Felicity Jones's wedding. For the former he is the inevitable future, for the latter, a chance to shine in the reflected glory of the match. She is determined to make the best of her future, she just needs to come to terms with it first. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is a gloomy tale about a pair of crazy kids in love who just cannot get their sh*t together. IFC Films Romantic and spirited Dolly Thatcham (Felicity Jones) is preparing to marry kind but dull Owen Bigham (James Norton). The novella is one of misspent emotions and spilled seed. Source – own copy. Editorial Reviews. IFC Films Maybe I just wasn’t in the right mood at the time! Cheerful Weather for the Wedding movie reviews & Metacritic score: England, 1932. hide caption. Much to the chagrin of Dolly's mother (Elizabeth McGovern, right), Dolly's feelings imperil the plans she has for her daughter. Do not be fooled by the title of the 2012 film, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding.This is NOT a fluffy historical rom-com. (Her daughters, in another Downton echo, possess a remarkable flair for the dramatic.). A large group of family members and assorted friends gathers for a young woman's marriage in post-WWI England, an event that she seems to be anticipating with dread. Dolly is perhaps more sure of her feelings but her wedding day is perhaps not the day to review them. ( Log Out /  She is not suited to the bright yellow bridesmaid dress. Find trailers, reviews, synopsis, awards and cast information for Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (2012) - Donald Rice on AllMovie - As the preparations for her lavish country… It presents a young woman’s struggle to decide between the man she loved and who broke her heart, and her safe and financially stable fiancé, for whom she feels very little passion. hide caption, With: Felicity Jones, Luke Treadaway, Elizabeth McGovern, Something like deja vu takes hold during the opening shots of Donald Rice's debut feature, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. These two novels (published in 1932 and 1951) introduced a rare and unusual talent. Fill in your details below or click an icon to log in: You are commenting using your WordPress.com account. Change ), You are commenting using your Google account. The rest is a wistful romance, with Dolly getting quietly drunk upstairs as Joseph pines for her below. Appearance was everything and sacrifices had to be made between happiness and duty. ( Log Out /  ( Log Out /  There are two different movies going on here. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding The wedding-day waffling of a '30s-era Brit femme yields predictable comedy and melodrama in "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding." It’s based on a 1930s novella and feels like it. (To say nothing of each other.) Love was not a requirement for a relationship, just a happy bonus. The book is too brief to explain much, and I had to guess why the wedding was happening at all. It is perhaps this lack of focus on him that makes Owen the character the reader feels for the most, for his emotions are almost discarded. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. Read 180 reviews from the world's largest community for readers. She is to marry Owen Bingham. The few amusing scenes with the peripheral characters are not nearly enough to distract from the main characters being generally dreadful, selfish and spoiled human beings who don’t really deserve a happy ending. These seem almost a device to compare the sisters, the beauty of the bride not to be overshadowed by her sister. This poorly timed romance is the drama that drives the film, and yet Joseph and Dolly have but two present-day scenes together. Their summer dalliance is sketched out in dreamy flashbacks, with cinematographer John Lee giving these sequences the golden glow of idealized memory. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is a 2012 comedy drama film directed by Donald Rice and adapted from the 1932 novel of the same name by Julia Strachey of the Bloomsbury Group. England, 1932. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding Review ... SBS World Movies is bringing you the biggest curated films from all over the world every week through to the end of February. The reader though is led to understand Kitty has an army of suitors and we witness her charm offensive in action when she talks to Joseph, Dolly’s friend. Partridge kept a diary all her life and several volumes have been published by Little Brown. England, 1932. Change ). On the day of Dolly's (Felicity Jones) wedding, a former flame returns to stir up doubts about her decision. I found Cheerful Weather for the Wedding to be both thought provoking and fun to read. There is a mishap when she puts two guests in the same room so that the former nurse and the Canon end up in each other’s robes. Under the Reader’s Radar – celebrating the quiet novel, Follow From First Page to Last on WordPress.com. Today is Dolly Thatcham's wedding day, and her family is arriving at the manor house with all the cheerfulness, chaos and grievances that bubble to the surface at such gatherings. A space to share book reviews and other book related treats, A short novel that was first published in 1932 by a niece of Lytton Strachey: in this ‘sharp, unsentimental domestic comedy, the weather is something less than cheerful the day Dolly Thatcham marries the Hon Owen Bingham: “In the furious March gale, everyone felt as though they were being beaten on the back of the head and on the nose with heavy carpets, and having cold steel knives thrust up inside their nostrils.”‘. A young woman frets upstairs in her family's country manor on her wedding day, fearful she's about to marry the wrong man. Parents need to know that Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is anything but cheerful. That feeling of anticipation rising in many viewers' chests may be their hearts readying themselves for the tense post-Victorian drama of the popular TV series Downton Abbey, which is what that opening rather too directly recalls. Today is Dolly Thatcham's wedding day, and her family is arriving at the manor house with all the cheerfulness, chaos and grievances that accompany such gatherings. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding describes a country wedding in Dorset -- guests eat and drink, a rejected suitor wanders around, the bride fortifies herself with rum and everybody pays tribute to the institution of marriage. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding book. This is a short novella, though it is not short of story. Change ), You are commenting using your Twitter account. Julia Strachey was one of her oldest friends and she wrote “Julia” a biography. She was married to the sculptor Stephen Tomlin from 1927-34. This site uses Akismet to reduce spam. Published by Persephone Books. Mrs Thatcham is easily conjured, flitting about, fretting and preening in equal measures. Each of the characters are easy to imagine, as are the sitting room, library and bedroom of the bride. Frances Partridge (1900-2004) was the oldest surviving member of the Bloomsbury Group, having been married to one of its members and counting most of them as her friends. He's sturdy, steadfast and, it's suggested, just a little bit dull. So why is the bride hiding in her room with a bottle of rum? The titular wedding is that of older daughter Dolly Thatcham (Felicity Jones), and as the extended family gathers at the house for the happy occasion, she is holed up in her room, being dressed by her ladies' maid, getting drunk on rum and reading Tolstoy's Family Happiness, a title as ironic to her own situation as it was to the author's story. Production began in November 2010 and the film premiered at the 2012 Tribeca Film Festival. Film, Comedy. In 1939 Julia met the art critic Lawrence Gowing, who was twenty-one; the two married after fifteen years. The reader is an uninvited guest, peeking in at the preparations and bustle and privy to the inner workings of the wedding party. Dolly's heart is with the more romantic Joseph, but he's absent and unreliable; his feeble attempts at emotional sabotage on her wedding day are far too little and way too late. Friend Evie (Zoe Tapper) has her eye on an older man, Uncle Bob (Julian Wadham), a religious man with a way with the ladies that doesn't quite match his clerical collar. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding (1932) is a novella by Julia Strachey. Persephone, 121 pp., $18 Anyone facing a deluge of summer nuptials will find breezy relief in Julia Strachey's 1932 novella, Cheerful Weather for the Wedding. ‎Watch trailers, read customer and critic reviews, and buy Cheerful Weather for the Wedding directed by Donald Rice for $7.99. Felicity Jones Luke Treadaway Elizabeth McGovern (2012) On the day of her wedding, an ambivalent bride (Felicity Jones) locks herself in her bedroom while her family -- and former lover (Luke Treadaway) ... Support for Internet Explorer 11 is Ending. As for Dolly, the reader is allowed to enter her room and some of her thoughts. Her mother is fluttering around the house, her sister is not happy with her appearance, the page boys are fighting and an old friend of the bride is trying to process just exactly what he feels about the impending nuptuals. She worked as a model at Poiret, as a photographer, and as a publisher’s reader. Many films focus on the proposal, the engagement, the planning or the actual wedding, but few take a look at the anxious hours in anticipation of the holy matrimony. Unfortunately, for the rest of the film, those forces refuse to mesh. Cheerful Weather for the Wedding is a quintessentially British movie about love, obligation and sacrifice. I’ve often thought about buying this book without ever quite making it to the till. Arriving at a time when Downton Abbey has made the love lives of proper British citizens popular once again, Donald Rice's adaptation of Julia Strachey's 1932 novel Cheerful Weather for the Wedding certainly feels like it's being released at a most advantageous moment, but in truth its tale of young love and family drama is timeless. With the insistent, urgent push of orchestral strings in the background, he offers up establishing shots of a bucolic English country manor, early 20th-century automobiles, and a bell ringing down in the servants' hall. Donald Rice's Cheerful Weather for the Wedding calls upon the style and period — and even an actress — from the popular TV drama Downton … Dolly's sister Kitty (Ellie Kendrick) is starved for attention and looking forward to trying to woo one of two handsome twins expected at the party. 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