Some movies just feel achingly British – period costumes, brittle accents, the fact that the whole movie looks like it was shot through a glass of iced tea – and "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding" is one of those movies. Please keep in mind that it's called "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding," which might be the most British title of anything since Hugh Grant's notorious "The Englishman Who Went Up a Hill But Came Down a Mountain." And even though "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding" looks like the kind of movie you put a doily under before watching, we kind of want to see it, mostly due to its two leads (Felicity Jones and Luke Treadaway) and the pleasurably Masterpiece Theatre vibe of this first trailer.
The trailer sets up the basic premise, with Jones' Dolly about to be wed, but that is thrown into chaos by the arrival of Joseph (Treadaway), her lover from the previous summer. Also, Elizabeth McGovern plays her mother, who probably wears a decoratively embroidered hat and does a lot of exasperated huffing. The marketing of the movie seems very knowing, targeting a specific "I'll see anything BBC-related" crowd, with period costumes, sweeping (if somewhat color-deprived) cinematography, and bumbling romantic business that gives way to heartfelt romantic business. Ah, love!
Treadaway and Jones both became people who we'd watch in pretty much anything after their respective banner years last year. Treadaway starred as a drug-buying yuppie in over his head in the wonderful sci-fi flick "Attack the Block" and Jones as a lovelorn romantic separated from her partner in the brilliant, frustratingly under-seen drama "Like Crazy." They have now become actors we would watch eat ham sandwiches for two hours, so whether or not "Cheerful Weather for the Wedding" is any good is kind of beside the point.
The film, a BBC Films/Working Title co-production directed by Donald Rice and adapted by Rice and Mary Henely-Magill from the 1932 novel of the same name by Julia Strachey, played at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York this past spring, was picked up by IFC Films. As of yet, no release date has been given. [The Film Stage]
Like Brit films, but not chick flicks.