Back when it was OK to be a boomer!

Rating: 8/10 (28 June 2020)

For those of us who came of age in the 1980's and 1990's (or came of age in the 80's but didn't really grow up until the 1990's), this is a nostalgic, lovable reminder of the better times that took us past the fact that we had Reagan and Bush Sr. as presidents. We also had the early years of Madonna, Cindy Lauper, the Pet Shop Boys, fun dive bars crowded during daylight and fabulous party clothes. The music was filled with reverb, the movies gave us hope for romance, friendship and fabulous places to visit, and for a movie from the late 1990's to take us back to that time, it often brings on a tear of recollection and the thought of "Where did the time go, and how do we get those good times back?"
This is the funny, nostalgic, romantic story of wedding singer Robby Hart (Adam Sandler in his very best performance) and waitress Julia Sullivan (an endearingly sweet Drew Barrymore) dealing with their romantic issues. Robby's been dumped at the alter by his trashy fiancee (Angela Featherstone), and Julia's engaged to a real jerk (Matthew Clave), and their initial meeting at a fun-filled wedding leads to a friendship that turns to romance as they realize slowly how much they were made for each other. An ensemble of wacky characters become involved in every aspect of their life including Barrymore's easy but basically decent sister (Christine Taylor), the flashy but shy Alexis Arquette as Sandler's openly gay singing buddy, and especially Ellen Albertini Dow as his loving grandmother who brought him up.
This film isn't just about the story; It is about references to 80's culture, with lots of little funny bits with advertising tie-ins (probably for products which no longer existed 12 years later), fashion trends and lots of various other cultural mentions of celebrities long out of the limelight. The elderly Ms. Dow will steal your heart from the moment you see her (she does for me in several other films as well), and it is certainly easy to root for Sandler and Barrymore in this, the first of several films they did together. The Broadway musical captured all of the magic of the original, and included two of the original songs written for this film including the sweet "I Want to Grow Old With You". Dow easily steals the scene with her very brief rap, and the only flaw is not letting her complete the song.