Throwback: ‘Muriel’s Wedding’ And When Miramax Was Cool

Today, Muriel’s Wedding, the Australian tale of a misfit with an imagination turns twenty. Toni Collette stars as the oddball Muriel, who suffers through her days in Porpoise Spit, Australia, simply because she was born in the wrong decade. All a girl wants to do is listen to ABBA and plan her fictional wedding. What’s so wrong with that?

Australian writer-director PJ Hogan gave us a movie quite unlike anything American audiences had seen before — and the Weinsteins of Miramax were the ones to make that happen back in 1994. Australian films like Muriel’s Wedding, Baz Luhrmann’s Strictly Ballroom, and The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert took the States by storm back in the early ’90s thanks to Harvey and Bob Weinstein Americanizing the marketing campaigns simply by making them seem less foreign.

Whether their tactics seem completely ethical is up for debate, but Miramax gave Australian actors like Toni Collette and Rachel Griffiths their break on the international big screen. Suiting up in spandex, lip-syncing to ABBA, gaining almost 40 pounds, and having the Weinsteins campaigning heavily for her the whole way through, Collette earned a Golden Globe nod for her role and had her career pushed into the mainstream.

Let’s take a look back at the most colorful, whimsical movie of ’94 and see if it’s still as wild and weird as we remember.

3:00: Toni Collette has these powers of making a gal remember exactly what it felt like to get picked on on the playground as a kid. Like Rose in In Her Shoes, Collette’s performance in Muriel’s Wedding gives us the same impression that her character’s life has always been this way, never growing out of the awkward playground phase.

10:00: “THERE WAS LIPSTICK ON IT!” So the girl on the left has been boinking around with their friend Tania’s new husband, which only Muriel knows about. But apparently he’s been cheating on both of them with the town ho because Tania found some evidence on the crime stick.

20:00: Again, watching people pick on Toni Collette is sometimes unbearably heartbreaking. Especially when she’s sporting an outfit like that. PJ Hogan did an awesome job of making light of Muriel slowly growing out of her ugly duckling phase, and, combined with Collette’s girl-next-door on-screen nature, it makes us fall in love with her over and over again during this movie, even when she’s stealing money from her parents and lying to every person in passing.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3U4kDzwZAMk]

25:00: While on holiday with the bitches, Muriel runs into Rhonda Epinstalk (Rachel Griffiths) from high school and the two realize they must be sisters from another mister because they both share an untimely obsession with ABBA. After Rhonda tells the bitches to take a hike, she and Muriel suit up and give some vacationers a show.

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTzEhxl6jNg]

43:00: Hands down, one of the most outrageous, bizarre scenes in movie history. Muriel has never been on a date, so needless to say, she’s never shared an intimate moment with a member of the opposite sex. Here’s what happens the first time she tries. Mind you, her best friend Rhonda is in the other room hooking up with two Americans she picked up at the bar.

50:00: This is where things took a turn for the real sad. At the very end of the epic scene above, Rhonda is forced to sit down because she can’t move her legs. Come to find out, she has cancer in her spine! Where will things go from here? Will Rhonda make a speedy recovery? Who will be Muriel’s dance partner?

1:05:00: After scanning the Men Seeking Women pages of a sleazy magazine, Muriel finds South African swimmer David, who needs to get married to stay in the country and compete with the Australian team. By the look on his face, it’s pretty clear he didn’t expect someone like Muriel to walk into the gym that day. Yet, with all this fibbing over the past few months, has Muriel’s fantasy of becoming someone’s wife coming true?

Final Thoughts: This is one of those movies you can watch over and over again and discover something new about it. Without being too corny or trying too hard, PJ Hogan has Muriel become the woman she’s always wanted to be — independent, confident, and sure about her future. The best part besides all the ABBA jams? Muriel finally gains some self-esteem and realizes she can take on life on her own. This is a movie to watch on all occasions, but especially when you’re down because Toni Collette is like a self-esteem spirit guide.

See where you can stream Muriel’s Wedding on GoWatchIt.

 

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Photos: Miramax/Netflix