Confetti

Confetti is a mockumentary that follows three couples as they compete for a house in Confetti Magazine's Most Original Wedding of the Year contest. There are Matt and Sam (Martin Freeman, from The Office, and Jessica Stevenson, from Shaun of the Dead), who want their wedding to be like a Busby Berkeley musical number, despite that fact that Sam is tone-deaf and suffers from 'physical dyslexia', i.e. she's clumsy. Then there are Michael and Joanna (Robert Webb and Olivia Colman), naturalists who want to have a wedding in the nude. And finally, there are Josef and Isabelle (Stephen Mangan and Meredith MacNeill, who were both in Festival, shown in Toronto last year), the intensely competitive couple who want a tennis-themed ceremony.

In the middle of it all are Archie and Gregory (Vincent Franklin and Jason Watkins), the wedding planners hired by the magazine to make the three couples' dreams come true. They must struggle with the outlandish themes and pressure from the couples, their families and the magazine's editors, all building to a climax with all three ceremonies taking place in one night while the judges look on.

Reminiscent of such films as Best in Show, or something closer to home, Festival, Confetti is a genuinely funny film with some touching moments thrown in for good measure. While the film pokes a bit of fun at the couples and their over-the-top concepts, the core message of the film is a belief in love and marriage (in whatever form that may take). Overall, a nice, entertaining film that will probably have wide appeal.

Director and screenwriter Debbie Isitt attended the screening and did a humorous Q&A, although half of what she wasn't serious:

• Casting took approximately six months, while shooting took six weeks, the exact timeframe portrayed in the film.
• Isitt gave the actors the themes for their weddings, and their relationship histories, but otherwise, the movie was completely improvised. They had to actually define and plan their weddings, especially the wedding planners Archie and Gregory.
• Because of the full-frontal male nudity in the film, the question was raised if the movie would even be released in the US. Isitt replied that it is coming out September 15, with an R rating.
• All the naturalist scenes were filmed in an actual naturalist colony in England, and Isitt herself shed her clothes while directing.
• The dancers in the musical wedding were not professionals; they were actors who had only six weeks to learn how to dance, just like the characters in the film.
• Isitt joked that Franklin and Watkins were so good at planning all the weddings that they decided to do it professionally and that she was having them plan her own wedding.
• Isitt said that the inspiration for the movie came from her own sister's somewhat disastrous wedding; her sister said she couldn't make a film about it, so Isitt did this one instead.

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