Truer words have never been spoken, as it turns out, as “Wedding Crashers” burns up the box office, with men, women and couples of all ages going out to have some sexy summer fun.
In the film, John Beckwith (Owen Wilson) and Jeremy Gray Vince Vaughn) are best friends and partners in a Washington, D.C. divorce mediation firm where they use their unique brand of negotiating to help couples realize that the end of their marriage is not to be blamed on each other, but should be blamed on the institution of marriage.
“John is a man who’s really had enough with the lifestyle he is leading, and feels that he is not following his own bliss,” says screenwriter Steve Faber. “He doesn’t realize this, of course, until he meets the woman of his dreams. Jeremy, on the other hand, lives more in the moment, steamrolling from one wedding to the next, one sexual encounter to another, without ever really looking back.”
“When the movie opens, John and Jeremy have crashed over 300 weddings and it’s been good for them in many ways,” says actor Vince Vaughn. “It’s not just meeting the girls – which they do enjoy – but they love the party atmosphere, the food, the drinks, the music, the dancing and the fact that love is in the air. They relish the whole event and feel that it’s the best party anyone can go to.”
Owen Wilson adds, “We also like to spread the wealth around and be multicultural, so we crash many ethnically diverse weddings. Italian, Jewish, Hindu, Chinese - it doesn’t matter - we just come in, take over and are the life of the party. If I personally were at a wedding, I would probably try and hide in the corner, but John and Jeremy get in the center and take the opposite approach of blending in by sticking out. It’s the idea that these guys are so obnoxious that they have to have been invited, because no one would act like this much of an idiot if they weren’t.”
Vaughn adds, “It’s almost like we do them a favor at each wedding because we get everyone on the dance floor, sing ‘Shout’ and whip everything up into a complete frenzy. There’s nothing casual about it, the champagne is flying and everyone is jumping around screaming and yelling.”
A too-long montage (one of a few) introduces John and Jeremy, two guys who have mastered the art of crashing weddings, an event that causes female attendees to "throw their inhibitions to the wind." Their well-practiced routine is full of carefully plotted approaches -- from dancing with the flower girl to expressing their fondness for Oprah's book club -- for capturing women's vulnerable hearts just long enough to entice them into bed. “The idea for “Wedding Crashers” started with an invitation I received for one of my friend’s weddings a few years ago,” says Producer Andrew Panay. “I began thinking back to my college days when I crashed a couple of weddings with a buddy of mine because it was an easy way to meet girls. I thought it could be a great backdrop for a film.”
John and Jeremy decide to be daring; They crash the wedding of the daughter of a well-connected Washington politico, Secretary Cleary (Christopher Walkin), where John gets struck by the proverbial thunderbolt upon seeing the Cleary’s other daughter, Claire ("The Notebook's" Rachel McAdams).
Jeremy, meanwhile, seduces a third daughter, Gloria Cleary (Isla Fisher), “I think it’s fair to say it’s love at first sight for Gloria when she meets Jeremy,” Fisher smiles. “She’s very young and impressionable and Jeremy is a real ladies man who woos her with all sorts of romantic stories. Gloria is swept off her feet by his dashing good looks and becomes very much a woman obsessed. She’s a bit like a spoiled kid with a new toy who just wants to snap its head off she loves it so much.”
The love-'em-and-skedaddle act gets thrown for a loop when John accepts a weekend invitation to the Kennedy-esque clan's vacation home, hoping to extend his chances of wooing Claire away from her preppy boyfriend (Bradley Cooper).
What proceeds is amusing, and fitfully over the top. Most of the gags are drawn from the playbook of rich folks' eccentricities, from the foul-mouthed grandmother to the horny matriarch (Jane Seymour) who takes a "The Graduate"-like pass at seducing John. “I love being in comedies, but I've only been allowed to do it a few times,” says the actress. “Kathleen is very flirtatious and doesn’t have a good marriage. She has been married for 30 years and faithful for two of them so she is always looking for distraction, either with the bottle or with a young handsome man. At her daughter’s wedding, the combination of champagne and the sight of Owen Wilson’s character is more than she can possibly handle and she just has to have him.”
Jeremy, meanwhile, endures an increasingly bizarre array of indignities, from a full-contact game of touch football to a memorable under-the-table dinner sequence that takes "Goodbye, Columbus" up a couple of notches.
