The Wedding People: A Dark Comedy That Feels Ripe for a Sundance Premiere
Imagine Bridesmaids meets Melancholia, and you’ll land somewhere near Alison Espach’s The Wedding People — a black comedy teetering on the edge of tragedy, wrapped in pastel tulle and Prozac.
This novel practically storyboards itself as a quirky indie dramedy. Phoebe, a literature professor with a crumbling marriage and a bottle of her cat’s painkillers, checks into a ritzy Newport hotel to end it all. What follows, however, is not the introspective, slow-burn drama you’d expect — it’s a collision with a six-day wedding celebration, and a bride who reacts to Phoebe’s suicidal plans not with concern but with irritation: “This is my wedding week.” You can almost hear the line in Florence Pugh’s dry, biting delivery.
Espach directs the plot like a tonal rollercoaster — dark realism gives way to manic farce, and not always smoothly. Still, the narrative has clear visual potential: oceanfront surf lessons, champagne-fueled chaos, a meet-cute in a steamy hot tub. Think Wes Anderson’s hyper-curated style mixed with the existential awkwardness of Noah Baumbach.
Some sequences are pure cinema — awkward, hilarious, and slightly unhinged — while others veer too far into absurdist territory (yes, there is sex with a vintage wedding car). But if handled with the right satirical touch, it could charm on screen the way The White Lotus or Palm Springs did: absurd, stylish, and laced with melancholy.
Uneven as a novel, but with the right director, The Wedding People could make for a delightfully dark rom-com that dares to ask what happens when death crashes a destination wedding.
Genre: Mystery
