REVIEW: Deft Execution Overcomes Familiar Premise of ‘Our Family Wedding’

Way back in 1967, Hollywood released a “message picture” about the rapidly changing state of America’s race relations, with Sidney Poitier playing a black doctor who causes a stir by attending dinner at his white girlfriend’s parents’ house, in “Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner?” In 2005, the somewhat-less-legendary Ashton Kutcher starred with Bernie Mac in a race-reversal comedic version of that premise, when he went to visit his black girlfriend’s family in “Guess Who?”

But times have always kept a-changing, and America’s a bigger melting pot than ever now. Yet tensions remain – often among minority populations struggling to carve out their fair share of the ever-dwindling American Dream. As a result, co-writer/director Rick Famuyiwa’s new dramedy film “Our Family Wedding” should have its finger on the pulse of the tensions between Los Angeles’ black and Latino populations. But despite some lively and touching performances from the immense cast headed by America Ferrera, Forest Whitaker and Carlos Mencia, and several boisterously funny moments, much of “Wedding” often feels muted and by-the-numbers.

The film follows the events that transpire when Lucia Ramirez (Ferrera) reveals to her traditional Roman Catholic parents, tow-truck-business owner Miguel (Mencia) and Sonia (Diana Maria Riva), that she’s marrying her black boyfriend, Marcus Boyd (the immensely likable Lance Gross, from the TBS sitcom “House of Payne”). Marcus, meanwhile, hasn’t told his playboy radio-DJ father Brad Boyd (Whitaker) the same news either. (more…)