Movie Review: "Top End Wedding" Is a Rom-Com Done 'Strayan-Style

The Sapphires’ director reteams with Miranda Tapsell for Top End Wedding. Do they still shine?

In The Importance of Being Earnest, the character Miss Prism says of her novels: "The good ended happily, and the bad unhappily; that is what Fiction means." Keep that in mind when you watch Top End Wedding, a new Aussie flick from director Wayne Blair that takes place in the fantastical and fictional world of romantic comedies.

I’m not saying—unlike Miss Prism, that sourpuss—there’s not romance or comedy to be found in real life. What am I, a literal monster? I simply mean rom-coms, even more so than Marvel movies, seem to have their own parallel universe in which characters behave unlike anyone you’ve ever met.

Okay, an example. Throughout Top End Wedding, newly-engaged lovebirds Lauren (Miranda Tapsell) and Ned (Gwilym Lee) receive calls on their mobiles, and each time, instead of emitting a silent buzz, the phones erupt with tailored ringtones. Now, this is a thing that only happens in the fantasy land of rom-coms, where there is apparently no 'silent' toggle either, which means ring tones must ring in full, to the awkward embarrassment of the recipient. Thanos, please finger-snap these poor souls into oblivion and save them from this doomed realm without a call decline function!

There are other examples of Top End Wedding adhering to the well-trod tropes of rom-coms that came before (you better believe there’s a declaration of love at the airport). It’d be pointless outlining them all, because ultimately, they are precisely the warm and familiarly fuzzy reasons we watch these things. As proven recently by Crazy Rich Asians, To All the Boys I’ve Loved Before and Set It Up, there are still bountiful pleasures to be found in this impossible genre, especially when old stories are remixed with new cultural configurations and casts. In fact, the very ordinariness of Top End Wedding—which charts the Darwin nuptials of an Aboriginal woman and a British ex-pat—proves you can always find new ways to diversify rom-coms without messing up the template.

It begins with an implausible and overly-complex situation, as all rom-coms must. After go-getter lawyer Lauren gets a promotion from intractable boss Hampton (Kerry Fox), her aimless boyfriend Ned proposes marriage. She accepts, but Hampton is only willing to give Lauren ten days off… starting now! So, to make her childhood dream come true, Lauren sweeps Ned off to the Northern Territory (AKA the "top end") for a traditional Aboriginal ceremony. Except, upon arrival, she discovers her mother—a runaway bride who ditched her parents, and her first planned wedding, in her youth—has disappeared. That leaves Lauren and Ned to find mum, while Lauren’s abandoned dad (Huw Higginson) sits around crying to Chicago’s "If You Leave Me Now" on loop. Hijinks ensue.

The screenplay by Tapsell and Joshua Tyler requires a lot of arm-twisting to keep its premise from toppling over (involving, in classic rom-com style, miscommunications based purely on people talking over one another). However, it’s all very well-meaning and sweet. Director Blair, who made The Sapphires with Tapsell, keeps things light, and, more importantly, keeps things moving, especially when the road trip commences. Cinematographer Murray Lui gives us plenty to gawk at in the meantime. (You will not be surprised to learn the flick was supported by Tourism NT.)

Top End Wedding gets the most mileage out of its superstar lead, Tapsell, who is effervescent and supremely watchable, especially when Lee’s Ned becomes a bit of a drip. Following her shell-shocking turn in ABC’s Get Krack!n, in which she monologued powerfully about Australian racism, Tapsell is confirming her status as a true national treasure, and she’s doing it in both incendiary and heart-warming ways.

That said, the surprise MVP is Ursula Yovich, as Lauren’s on-the-run mum Daffy. Without spoiling the moving and emotional finale, she brings sincere gravity to her part, as a woman disconnected from her heritage, and trying to reclaim it, maybe too late. This, despite Yovich clearly being 20 years younger than the character she’s playing. Hey, when the actor’s that good, and the genre’s already bending every other conceivable law of reality, you ignore logic and cast accordingly.

3/5

In Australian cinemas 2 May. Rated M for coarse language.