Tang is the powdered drink mix marketed as enjoyed by astronauts and which purportedly had more vitamins and minerals than orange juice. One of the guests at the titular wedding, Guy (Xavier Lacaille), has recently become its regional head of sales so at one point he goes into his full marketing demonstration to most of the kids present. The mothers who sit around smoking while watching the show are less convinced. But slowly this becomes clear how smart this metaphor is for the day’s events. The family you have might not be all the family you need; it might not give you all the things you need to grow up healthy and strong and it might actually be pretty bad for you. But you have to make the best of it, and if you don’t know any better you’re going to enjoy it anyway.
The young bride – and an only child – is Martine (Malou Khebizi) and her young groom is Jacques (Paul Kircher). He is 22 and the youngest of seven, and while the family tree is never drawn out I’m almost certain his siblings are bitter Odette (Victoire du Bois), angry Roger (Alban Lenoir), brittle Annie (Myriem Akheddiou), calm Isabelle (Noée Abita), troubled Claudie (Adèle Exarchopoulos) and irresponsible Dominique (Vincent Lacoste). It’s hard to know because all six siblings are married with children, so the sprawl of people present who know each other inside out is lively, all-encompassing and frantic. At one point their mother (Saadia Bentaïeb) is hoisted onto a table and congratulated for getting all her kids married, but it’s very clear by then the family wasn’t a completely happy one. For one thing, five of the siblings were born in a six-year period, and for another, their father was a violent, abusive bastard. All seven siblings hate him, and hate themselves whenever they realise they resemble him, too. It’s a lot to take on, but Martine and Jacques have loved each other their whole lives, so nothing else matters. Even if there’s a risk the father might crash the wedding.
We know for sure it’s 1978 because during the reception the radio news announces the death of a well-known French singer, causing one of the nieces (the brilliantly named Prune Bozo) to collapse into inconsolable tears. At another point some of the guests, including Michou (Park Ji-Min), are found in a stairwell listening to a soccer game on that same radio, a funny moment interrupted when Claudie gives Jacques his wedding present. She thinks it’s a tooth from his childhood she rescued from the tooth fairy, but he recognises it as the molar their father punched out of his head when he was 12. Most of the siblings are kind of a mess. Odette is furious that her caretaking responsibilities have never stopped, Annie is hoping her husband won’t notice she’s left him, Dominique has just been fired from his job, Roger has a hair-trigger temper and PTSD from the things he did as a soldier in Algeria, and Claudie cannot accept that her husband Pierre-François (Andranic Manet) has left her for another woman. At least Isabelle, who is married to Guy, seems happy and well-centered. Among other activities, people drink, squabble, confide secrets, try to borrow money, give advice, play soccer, share cigarettes, pat shoulders, shout at each other, break things, throw punches, dance slowly, put the kids to bed, sing, laugh so hard they wet themselves. In other words, the kind of overwhelming situation that only a large and loving family can create.
We don’t need to be told that writer-director Christophe Honoré attended approximately a billion family events like this as a child, because there’s an order within the chaos that only comes from knowing all the players inside out. But that might have led to the three big mistakes: three flash-forwards, centering Claudie, Martine and Jacques respectively, that pull us out of the action of the wedding day. Possibly they were added because the casting of Ms Exarchopoulos – who really is a generational talent – made them feel her character needed to be expanded. But other ways should have been found to explain why this particular day became so important to the family without pulling focus from the main event.
For a film about a wedding, the actress playing the bride is surprisingly underused. Ms. Khebizi’s big moment involves the physical comedy of putting an overdressed and very drunk aunt to bed, which is one of the lighter moments of the film. Cinematographer Jeanne Lapoirie used film stock that replicated the look of seventies movies without overdoing it, and the handheld cameras swirl through the action without ever becoming showy. But for the most part we follow the seven siblings: Claudie’s lack of self-control getting on everyone’s nerves, Roger going way over the line with Dominique’s wife and pretty much everybody, Dominique getting humiliated in front of a group of his nieces and nephews, Annie shocking everyone with the news of her separation, and Jacques beaming with happiness as he looks forward to his exciting future with Martine. The drama – and boy howdy there’s more drama in this one day than some TV shows manage in a season – is also punctuated with the constant refrain for everyone to keep what they know to themselves. Mom can’t know. Don’t tell your parents. For heaven’s sake don’t tell Claudie. Don’t tell Odette. Don’t let Roger know. Don’t tell anyone. Everything is fine. We’re all fine. Don’t tell.
Costume designer Pascaline Chavanne also had a wonderful time nailing the look, and the fact everyone over fourteen smokes non-stop makes the period setting vivid in ways little else could achieve. But Orange-Flavoured Wedding will be studied for its ensemble cast of major stars making their characters vivid in the midst of all this mayhem. It’s a family drama in all the best senses of the word.
Orange-Flavoured Wedding (Mariage au goût d’orange) recently played at the Cannes Film Festival.
Learn more about the film at the Cannes site for the title.
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