**** (Out of four)

Rating: 8/10 (9 November 2000)

"Some guys have all the luck/ Some guys have all the fame/ Some guys get all the breaks/ Some guys do nothing but complain." --Rod Stewart
Ah,the 80s. The decade of Reaganomics, Iran Contra, the Challenger explosion, and the emergence of AIDS. Yet Adam Sandler maintains in this movie that it was also a decade of innocence, of New Wave rebellion, of exotic pastel colors that were intentionally garish, and of Wall Street brokers who, at least if not the epitome of Republican sleaze, were the antithesis of all things romantic. It certainly is a vast generalization of an entire decade, yet in an era where "over-the-top" was not part of the national vernacular, I'm tempted to agree.
"The Wedding Singer" takes place in a New Jersey suburb in the dog days of summer 1985. It chronicles the relationship of a nuptials entertainer (Sandler) and a waitress (Drew Barrymore) who serves at his ceremonies. Sandler is engaged to the quintessential Bananarama-inspired dress fiend and Barrymore has an ineffable low-life businessman for a beau. Together they figure out, through the course of the movie, how right they are for each other.
Movies like "The Wedding Singer" should not be judged by storyline alone. Nor should they be analyzed through such dire necessities as screenplay, set design (although the movie's is fabulous), cinematography, or out-and-out "acting". The film is a nostalgia piece, an "American Graffiti" for the 80s child, and while those cynics out there (paging Roger Ebert) are tempted to dismiss it as another hodgepodge of geriatric love cliches, those who grew up and fell in love with life during this era will most likely smile when the John Hughes-esque villain gets his comeuppance, or when the "unattractive" teenager gets to dance with the beautiful girl, or when a pre-wedding montage is set to Hall and Oates' "You Make My Dreams Come True".
I was a small little ball of wonder during the 80s, and indeed the terms "cocaine", "narcissistic" and "Nirvana" were inutterably foreign to me. Yes, I wrote letters to Punky Brewster, I danced to such trendy acts as Nu Shooz, and I went to a Midwestern drive-in where silly sci-fi's like "Lifeforce" played while the speakers blared Stacy Q songs during intermission. "Childhood" would be one way to describe it; another would be "magic".
"The Wedding Singer" placed me into that state of mind, so much so that I felt depressed after reality hit me with a swift uppercrust as I slogged out of the theater after seeing this the first time. Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore were nothing but a gawky high-school nerd and a drug-addicted child starlet during the "real" 80s, yet they retained a love for the decade that shows up in this movie. The 80s may have been garish and embarrassing for some, yet it remained primarily the last decade where America functioned as a whole, rather than being split down the middle with "independent" subgenres in the worlds of politics, film and music. The spirit of the times reflected a "one last bash" attitude, where established songwriters like Rod Stewart produced their fluffiest hits. Some call it "selling out"; I call it having fun. "The Wedding Singer" takes a snapshot of the suburban innocence of an era, where cynicism had yet to filter into the middle class. Girls just wanted to have fun, computer geeks had yet to make their millions, and boys had a crush on either Molly Ringwald or Ally Sheedy. Ebert asks if the screenwriters ever stopped to think about the plot of this movie; no they didn't, Roger. That would have brought in all of the unpleasantries of the decade. For those of us far away from it all, "The Wedding Singer" is how we twenty-somethings like to remember our childhood: sweet, beautiful and substantial.