A heart-warming tale of finding your family - and through them, yourself - Top End Wedding takes full advantage of a range of spectacular scenery and some very funny performances to create a rom-com that's surprisingly assured once it finds its feet. Coming from a first-time script-writer (Miranda Tapsell, who co-wrote the script, stars in the film and is also an executive producer), the characters are deftly drawn and relatable, the story moves at a fast pace, and it delivers a strong emotional punch at the end. It's the kind of film we don't make anywhere near often enough in this country; fingers crossed it gets the level of success it deserves.
Adelaide lawyer Lauren (Tapsell) and her partner Ned (Gwilym Lee) are getting married. This is not a straightforward procedure: they not only have a narrow window in which to seal the deal (Lauren's boss in not big on time off), Lauren wants to have the ceremony with her family in the Northern Territory, and it turns out her mother Daphne (Ursula Yovich) has gone missing (there's also the little matter of Ned being unemployed, but he hasn't told Lauren that yet). Her dad Trevor (Huw Higginson) isn't much help, what with sitting in the closet listening to sad songs all day, so there's only one way to track her down: road trip!
Much of the appeal of the rom-com genre comes from the fact that, so long as you get the lead characters right (and hopefully, find actors with decent chemistry), audiences will overlook a whole range of cinematic flaws. Fortunately, both Tapsell and Lee (last seen playing Brian May in Bohemian Rhapsody) are extremely watchable in their own rights and totally plausible as a young couple in love. This is a rare(ish) rom-com where the drama comes from outside the central relationship: while they might not be married at the start of the film, there's never any real doubt that they'll end up hitched in some form or another by the end.
Unfortunately this means that the drama is mostly about finding Daphne, and the film's middle stretch is fairly aimless despite traveling through a lot of very striking country. The journey is meant to be a trip exploring her past but there's just not that much to work with and the film's comedy - which is strongest and broadest in the early, more crowded scenes - fades to be replaced with a mild and inoffensive travelogue that director Wayne Blair (The Sapphires) does his best to make visually engaging.
This is perhaps too uneven to be truly satisfying across the board - if you like the broad silliness of the first act the more thoughtful and emotional scenes in the third may not be for you, and the film's middle stretch is largely forgettable. This drifting is all the more frustrating for viewers (unless you're a member of the Northern Territory tourism board, who must be delighted with the way this sells a number of tourism hotspots) because the final act of the film really does connect with Lauren's family history in a powerful way that's the obvious highlight of the film.
It's a shame it takes so long to get to this material; it's clearly the part of the film everyone is passionate about, and that enthusiasm and engagement comes through loud and clear. It's a road trip where the destination is well worth the journey; hopefully Australian audiences feel up to the ride.
- Anthony Morris
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