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In the opening shots of Michael Winterbottom ’s “The Wedding Guest,” Jay ( Dev Patel ) looks solemn, determinedly moving towards something. He looks to be on a mission. There’s a touch of mystery in his movement as he makes his way from the Lahore airport in Pakistan, towards dipping in-and-out of shops looking for duct tape, suitcases and a gun. He tells people he’s going to an old friend’s wedding, but it couldn’t be further from the truth. Jay is on his way to kidnap a bride, Samira ( Radhika Apte ), and whisk her across the border for his employer and her secret boyfriend, Deepesh ( Jim Sarbh ).

However simple the plan, “The Wedding Guest” is a movie steeped in the traditions of film noir, and its narrative will become complicated very quickly. Winterbottom, who also wrote and co-produced the movie, creates a story about gorgeous people committing crimes and double-crossing each other, where no one is innocent, except maybe the poor guard who’s killed during Samira’s kidnapping. In one scene while on the lam in India, Samira mentions that she and Jay are on the run like Bonnie and Clyde, two wayward souls finding each other by crime and chance. There’s more than a hint of romance between the two.

However, “The Wedding Guest” is perhaps much closer in spirit to “ Double Indemnity ,” Billy Wilder ’s twisted 1944 film noir about a conniving woman ( Barbara Stanwyck ) who entraps a poor dope ( Fred MacMurray ) in a scheme to kill her husband. Samira’s double nature is not apparent at first, and Apte so convincingly plays the victim, the character shift is almost too subtle. She’s trying to escape her family and an unwanted marriage, and Jay becomes her last ticket out from that situation. Later, she becomes more confident in winning over Jay’s trust, and she appears remorseless, actively flirting with the man hired to kidnap her. It’s a sleight of hand trick she plays very well.

Set in Pakistan and India, the movie adds an element of travel lust to the mix without addressing any of the thorny political issues currently roiling the neighboring countries. That isolation works because the fugitives are so isolated, they spend as much time as possible away from everyone else. Plus, Jay noticeably does not speak any of the local languages of the places they travel through within the two countries, relying instead that someone, somewhere will understand English. The various languages in the movie will sometimes go entirely untranslated, so the English speakers in the audience will only know what Jay knows.

And what Jay knows seems to be very little as the story twists and turns. As he grows from kidnapper to protector, it’s apparent that perhaps Samira is indeed modeled after Stanwyck’s “Double Indemnity” character, pulling strings of a puppet who doesn’t know he’s being played. Here, Patel gets the chance to play with the archetype of the doomed film noir antihero, a tough yet still vulnerable, serious man, a role that could have suited Robert Mitchum in another era. His character remains ambiguous with a James Bond-like confidence even when he makes a mistake.

Cinematographer Giles Nuttgens channels that film noir spirit not in hyper-stylized Dutch angles or sharp contrasts, but in gentler, shadowy ways. Apart from one scene in a rocky, treeless desert, much of the movie looks like the criminals are running from the light, spending much of their time moving from hotel-to-hotel or traveling as the sun streams in from a train window. It’s as if there’s a soft, cloudy sky looming over their trip, not dark enough to rain but not sunny enough to be happy.

While Patel’s performance and the chemistry between him and co-star Apte are thrilling to watch, the travel scenes sometimes slow the film’s momentum down. There doesn’t seem to be a concrete reason for hopping town-to-town, other than India has many pretty places for them to hide out. There’s also a sharp tinny sound in Harry Escott ’s music somewhere that sometimes took me out of the movie. After trying it on two different speakers and hearing the same sound, I can only conclude it was meant to create a suspenseful ambiance, but that it didn’t work for me.

“The Wedding Guest” may not be everyone’s idea of a thrilling neo-noir, but I liked much more of it than I thought I would. Winterbottom’s camera focuses more on the chemistry between his two leads than it does their surroundings, which seems to pass by like a blur in their whirlwind escape. It helps that Patel throws himself into the part of a brooding, mysterious romantic leading man. Patel, who also served as a producer on the film, may be looking into graduating from playing stock supporting characters and into more challenging lead roles. “The Wedding Guest” makes a very compelling case for a promotion.

Monica Castillo

Monica Castillo is a critic, journalist, programmer, and curator based in New York City. She is the Senior Film Programmer at the Jacob Burns Film Center and a contributor to  RogerEbert.com .

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Film Credits

The Wedding Guest (2019)

Rated R for language, some violence and brief nudity.

Radhika Apte

• Michael Winterbottom

Cinematographer

• Giles Nuttgens
• Marc Richardson
• Harry Escott

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The Wedding Guest Reviews

The melting-pot of genres aside, The Wedding Guest is worth a look based on its steady hand, a pair of strong lead performances, and a rousing musical score, but really needed that one thing to bring it all together.

Full Review | Original Score: 3.5/5 | Aug 20, 2022

His controversial nudes and other graphic images are here, yet the film itself feels conventional and tepid.

Full Review | Oct 28, 2020

A meditative yet thrilling genre bender.

Full Review | Oct 1, 2020

From the second half on, the film is lost as a tourist without a passport, abandoning the sense of intrigue and mystery to give way to a conventional love story. [Full review in Spanish]

Full Review | Original Score: 5/10 | Jul 28, 2020

For a cross-continental thriller, The Wedding Guest is truly rote in composition and tone.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 27, 2020

In the end, the screenplay is the letdown, hewing too closely to generic convention.

Full Review | Mar 24, 2020

The story feels realistic in a way that this sort of noir material doesn't, always... They're human, and I rooted for them.

Full Review | Jan 7, 2020

Basically, it's Double Indemnity... I thoroughly enjoyed this film.

Full Review | Sep 20, 2019

Something you will have to seek out, but Michael Winterbottom is always worth seeking out.

Full Review | Jul 25, 2019

Director Michael Winterbottom seems to be too interested in psychology to be able to deliver an effective action thriller. However, great leads and an air of mystery hold your attention until the bitter end.

Full Review | Original Score: 3/5 | Jul 22, 2019

More than anything, this wiry thriller works as a homage to the neo-noir genre.

Full Review | Original Score: 4/5 | Jul 20, 2019

Despite good performances and an interesting milieu, The Wedding Guest doesn't deliver as an exciting genre piece or thought-provoking drama. Michael Winterbottom is a master in many areas but the thriller seems beyond him this time.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/5 | Jul 19, 2019

The performances are perfectly solid and it always runs smoothly, but the film itself seems to take its leave of us with a shrug.

The Wedding Guest has all the right pieces there but fails to pull together into quite the finished product the high standards of its individual components suggest.

Full Review | Jun 23, 2019

Depending on your expectations, this deliberately slow-paced thriller might serve as a satisfying "I do" or a disappointing "I don't"

Full Review | Original Score: 2.5/4 | Jun 10, 2019

While Dev Patel brings the best performance possible given what he had to work with, it's hard to feel empathy or root for any characters in a story that never really knows what it wants to be.

Full Review | May 4, 2019

Patel works harder to hide his sex appeal in The Wedding Guest than the director does to make it an enticing film.

Full Review | Original Score: C+ | Apr 30, 2019

The film works surprisingly well.

Full Review | Apr 3, 2019

A thriller that ambles along when it's supposed to be antic, that takes too many shortcuts in plot and character development.

Full Review | Original Score: 2/4 | Mar 27, 2019

A serviceable, low-key kidnap caper that turns out to be more of a travelogue than a thriller.

Full Review | Original Score: 6/10 | Mar 25, 2019

Home » Movies » Movie Reviews

The Wedding Guest Review: Slightly Incohesive, Yet Effective Film

The melting-pot of genres aside, The Wedding Guest is worth a look based on its steady hand, a pair of strong lead performances, and a rousing musical score, but really needed that one thing to bring it all together.

When I first began to watch Dev Patel in The Wedding Guest , I had a passing thought that he found a script that could play as a potential tryout for the new James Bond. Patel’s mysterious Muslim character from the UK is hired to kidnap a bride in Pakistan the night before her wedding, with a gun in hand. While director Michael Winterbottom’s film may start as a thriller, at its heart, the genre-shifting movie is a product of the #MeToo movement.

The 24-Hour Party People director has an ever-varied filmography that seems to update annually with every eclectic choice. He also wrote th e script for The Wedding Guest that is rather a melting-pot of genres; there is really nothing wrong with that, even if many have said it takes away from the film as a whole. You can see parts of his romantic drama Jude in  The Wedding Guest , while the first act is more of a thriller and has the authentic on-the-ground feel of Welcome to Sarajevo . The race out of town is filled with danger and back-alley deals, that has shades of his documentary-style adventure film In This World.

All of these styles work on almost three anthology tale level with the same lead actors, or 30-minute vignettes. The same underlying theme of the film which many missed or discounted isn’t about Patel, it’s about a story of a woman who has never had the freedom of choosing her path in life. That is always about to boil near the surface in the screenplay, whether it works on the level of a thriller, adventure, or romantic drama.

What isn’t up for debate is how the film is held up by two strong lead performances. Dev Patel, growing into a full-fledged movie star status after his turn in Lion , shows he is ready for more mainstream and diverse roles since coming onto the scene in Slumdog Millionaire . Then there is Lust Stories alumnus Radhika Apte, who takes a character that could have been relegated to a simplistic portrayal who could be there only to redeem a flawed leading man. Instead, she displays enough piss and vinegar to go toe to tail with Patel’s Jay, enough chemistry with him for us to care about the outcome of their relationship. It’s an excellent performance that you may not see or even appreciate after watching.

The Wedding Guest does have its faults; for instance, even though all the moving parts work individually, Winterbottom’s film needed one last thing to tie it all together to make it one whole cohesive dish. The ending is conventional and you can see it coming. Considering the writer/director, you could anticipate a fresher way to end the almost one-note film.

It remains effective but would have worked better if it went with one genre that it ended with for the entire film, even if it’s an ending we have seen countless times before. That being said, it’s worth a look based on the director’s steady hand, a pair of strong lead performances, and a beautifully moving musical score by Harry Escott. While the parts may not be stronger than the whole here, they work so well individually it’s worth a look.

Article by Marc Miller

Marc Miller (also known as M.N. Miller) joined Ready Steady Cut in April 2018 as a Film and TV Critic, publishing over 1,600 articles on the website. Since a young age, Marc dreamed of becoming a legitimate critic and having that famous “Rotten Tomato” approved status – in 2023, he achieved that status.

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Dev Patel Shows His Range in The Wedding Guest

Michael Winterbottom’s thriller The Wedding Guest finds Dev Patel in a broody, sexy role — a departure from his typically fresh-faced, nice-guy performances — and it’s impressive how well the actor fits the part; his long face and lanky frame give him a captivatingly melancholy countenance. In the film’s opening passages, as he arrives in Pakistan and moves from town to town, shifting identities and picking up tools — a car, a gun, duct tape, etc. — he makes for a dashing, mysterious presence. We don’t know what he’s up to, but we know it can’t be good. But still, it’s Dev Patel, so we know it can’t be too bad either. He shows his range without entirely undermining his persona, the sign of a true movie star.

Patel’s character is named Jay in the credits, though I don’t think he ever gives his name in the film. Or rather, he gives multiple names. He’s a professional, hiding beneath different layers of subterfuge. He’s arrived at a wedding in Pakistan to seize the bride-to-be, Samira (Radhika Apte) and deliver her to her true love Deepesh (Jim Sarbh), who hired Jay back in England. It’s an intriguing, modern-day spin on a common story found in many cultures: the bridal-abduction romance. Jay and Samira move from town to town, covering their tracks and making their way to Amritsar, India, where Deepesh is supposed to wait for them. But the lover isn’t there; he’s having second thoughts, and he’s also a little freaked out that Jay killed a guard during his attempt to sneak Samira out of her home.

I won’t say more about the plot, though we sort of know where it’s all headed. The chemistry between Patel and Apte is exciting; they’re both beautiful, but mournfully so. She’s just had her life upended, and he’s in the middle of a job that’s falling apart. When they reach out and touch, it doesn’t just feel like an inevitable narrative development; it feels like two broken souls hanging on for dear life.

Winterbottom is one of those prolific directors with a reputation as a journeyman: His work has gone from self-aware adaptations like Tristram Shandy to playful biopics like 24 Hour Party People to vérité social dramas like In This World ; he’s also done a variety of documentaries, though his best-known recent pictures are probably the Steve Coogan–Rob Brydon The Trip films. But before he started making a thousand movies a minute, Winterbottom’s work had an ineffable romantic sweep and formal grace. (If you ever get a chance to see his adaptation of Jude the Obscure , starring Kate Winslet, don’t miss it. And his masterpiece might be the snowbound period epic The Claim , which was dumped by its distributor back in 2000.)

The Wedding Guest feels at times like a throwback to those swooning, deeply emotional early titles. In the early scenes, we see Jay absorbed in his own world, a lonely figure against teeming streets and crowded parties and country roads. After Samira enters his universe, he tries to keep his distance from her. But Winterbottom starts to bring them together in the frame, isolating them together against walls, windows, and throngs of people. The film pushes them together before their emotions do. The director is also fond of location shooting, and his camera turns the various towns and cities of India and Pakistan into aesthetic elements without ever exoticizing them. They go from forbidding backdrops, underlining the characters’ alienation, to expressions of romantic longing. It’s all quite gorgeous, and surprisingly moving. The Wedding Guest shows just how much you can do with a wisp of a story and a whole lot of cinematic vision.

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A brooding Dev Patel carries quiet kidnap drama The Wedding Guest : EW review

The phrase "low-key thriller" might be an oxymoron, but it also feels like the best description of The Wedding Guest , a movie shot through with long pauses and quiet melancholy that also happens to feature an international kidnapping, multiple murders, and at least one noir-ish double cross.

Its protagonist — more antihero than hero, though even that word sounds too definitive — is Jay (Dev Patel), a man so inscrutable he doesn't so much live in the world as move through it, like a disaffected ghost.

As he travels alone from London to Lahore and then further into rural Pakistan, he never speaks more than the bare minimum required to acquire a rental car, a burner phone, and a cache of guns. Who is this cipher of a man, and what kind of wedding could he possibly be going to?

Some form of answer finally comes when he breaks into a family compound in the middle of the night and forcibly makes away with Samira (Bollywood star Radhika Apte). She's the bride-to-be, though it's an arranged marriage, and her abduction doesn't seem entirely unwelcome. Maybe that's why she seems so cooperative, even as she's shoved into a trunk and otherwise manhandled by her preternaturally calm captor, whose motivations will soon be clear.

Writer-director Michael Winterbottom ( The Trip , 24 Hour Party People ) maintains a muted tone throughout, almost as if he's congenitally allergic to the genre he's penned himself into. Even as blood is spilled and trusts betrayed, the movie feels more like a travelogue or a tone poem than anything resembling a conventional kidnap drama.

The unraveling of the plot's central mystery, and the establishment of a tentative romance, might not carry at all if it weren't for the two actors at its center. Apte, part femme fatale, part heedless girl, is gorgeous to watch. And Patel, the Slumdog Millionaire breakout who cemented his leading-man gifts in 2016's Lion , has the kind of pensive, burning presence that consistently draws the camera toward him.

By any prevailing action-movie metric, Guest barely bothers to meet the traditional wham-bam metrics of the genre. But as an intriguing, impressionistic wisp of a story, its mood and colors linger on the screen. B

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Film Review: ‘The Wedding Guest’

Likable 'Slumdog Millionaire' star Dev Patel struggles to flex beyond his limited range in this unconventional thriller from Michael Winterbottom.

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The internet will correct me if I’m wrong, but I’m pretty sure “The Wedding Guest” is the first time Dev Patel has handled a firearm in one of his movies. Five minutes into Michael Winterbottom ’s Pakistan-set thriller, the actor walks into a shop, asks to try out a gun, and proceeds to inspect a semiautomatic pistol before settling on another. At this point, we don’t know the character’s name — and besides, we’ve seen him slip passports with four aliases into his suitcase — but Winterbottom is already actively manipulating stereotypes.

“The Wedding Guest” turns out to be the story of a professional, played by Patel but of the sort usually embodied by white men with square jaws and power-drill stares, who is contracted to kidnap a woman (Radhika Apte) on the eve of her arranged marriage and deliver her to the man she loves. But Winterbottom, as globe-trotting and genre-defying a filmmaker as they come, shows only limited interest in telling that kind of movie, leveraging unconventional settings, actors, and techniques to overturn what we expect from such a plot.

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So, while “The Wedding Guest” assumes the superficial aspects of an action movie, it is in fact a far subtler enterprise at its core: In its attention to the gender dynamics and subtle power games underlying such a premise, the film plays out like Iranian director Asghar Farhadi’s “About Elly” with guns, providing an edgier (if ultimately less effective) take on how a woman betrothed to a man she doesn’t love manages to disappear. Beneath the surface — and the somewhat artificial suspense of whether Apte’s character will run off with Patel — Winterbottom’s film serves as a critique of the limited options available to women in the Middle East.

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It is not, as you may imagine, a movie that audiences will be flocking to see in theaters, or on demand for that matter, and though indie distributor IFC Films has enjoyed a certain amount of success with Winterbottom (dating back at least to “The Killer Inside Me,” but with “The Trip” and its sequels especially), this title seems destined soon to be forgotten by all but Patel’s fans.

The actor’s career began just over a decade earlier with the British coming-of-age series “Skins,” and took off in a significant way the following year when he starred in the Oscar-winning “Slumdog Millionaire.” Around that time, Patel gave an interview to a British paper in which he noted, “Asian actors tend not to be sent Hollywood scripts that are substantial or challenging. I’m likely to be offered the roles of a terrorist, cab driver, and smart geek.” This film is a step above, but hardly the breakthrough Patel deserves.

As fellow British actor Riz Ahmed recently explained to NPR, non-white actors often face a frustrating three-stage process to overcome typecasting. Early on, they tend to be offered what he called “Stage 1” roles — reductive, race-based bit parts — whereas “The Wedding Guest” provides Patel a rarer “Stage 2” opportunity, what Ahmed describes as “stories that take place on explicitly ethnicized terrain, but aim to subvert those [stereotypes].” The goal, in Ahmed’s eyes, is to reach “Stage 3,” “where I’m not shackled to my ethnicity.” But Patel has a unique kind of problem: He’s an infinitely likable actor of limited range, and as such, he’s bound by more than just his skin color: Regardless of race, he’s a scrawny, youthful, and thoroughly nonthreatening presence onscreen.

To see Patel wielding a gun, as we do in “The Wedding Guest,” doesn’t register as it ought to. It’s assumed, but never explored, that such a for-hire specialist would have navigated situations like this before, but he botches the extraction, shooting an armed guard in the escape, and he does a clumsy job of explaining the situation to the client. Why present Patel as the middleman at all? Wouldn’t it have been more directly engaging if he had been the bride-to-be’s secret lover, come to spirit her away on the eve of her marriage? And wouldn’t the unexpected course their relationship sets in its final minutes have worked just as effectively if he’d been infatuated with her since the beginning, as opposed to falling for her so late in the film?

Winterbottom has spent far more time than most Western directors making Middle East-set stories. He first featured Pakistan in 2002’s “In This World,” and has returned to the region several times since, which pays off here in the almost casual way he incorporates the atmosphere of his Indian locations — whether it’s a crowded market or an isolated desert-scape — into the film. What’s lacking is personality from the human characters, which is a serious failing, considering how the film shifts into character mode as Apte slowly emerges as an equal to Patel, while both remain too guarded for audiences to fully appreciate as people.

That’s not entirely surprising, since Winterbottom’s best movies have been those credited to writers other than himself. Here, watching him juggle the expectations of genre with the elements intended to make this particular entry feel original, one is easily reminded of more successful attempts at refreshing the abduction/rescue formula — films like “Out of Sight” or “You Were Never Really Here,” whose directors mixed a specificity of character with their lead actors’ natural charisma to steer things in an original direction. Winterbottom works differently, taking material shot in a dizzying array of locations and honing it down as if making a documentary. While that approach makes for an unconventional thriller in an unusual milieu, it mistakes texture for the sort of character details that would have made such an excursion feel convincing.

Reviewed online, Feb. 27, 2019, Los Angeles. (In Toronto, Palm Springs film festivals.) MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 97 MIN.

• Production: (U.S.) An IFC Films release, presented with Stage 6 Films, in association with Ingenious Media, Riverstone Pictures, of a Revolution Films, Deepak Nayar/Nik Bower production. Producers: Melissa Parmenter, Michael Winterbottom, Deepak Nayar, Nik Bower, Dev Patel. Executive producers: Andrea Scarso, Peter Touche. Co-producers: Anthony Wilcox, Pravesh Sahni.
• Crew: Director, writer: Michael Winterbottom. Camera (color, widescreen): Giles Nuttgens. Editor: Marc Richardson. Music: Harry Escott.
• With: Dev Patel, Radhika Apte, Jim Sarbh. (English, Urdu dialogue)

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Movie Review – The Wedding Guest (2018)

February 28, 2019 by Robert W Monk

The Wedding Guest , 2018

Written and Directed by Michael Winterbottom. Starring Dev Patel, Radhika Apte, and Jim Sarbh.

A mysterious man travels from the UK to Pakistan on a top-secret mission to attend a wedding – armed with duct tape,  a  shotgun, and  a  plan to kidnap  the  bride-to-be.

Michael Winterbottom delivers a tense thriller with The Wedding Guest . Destined in some eyes to be a calling card for Dev Patel’s eminent suitability to portray the next 007, this beautifully produced flick is far more of a subtle picture than would be likely found in the Bond franchise.

Keeping the background information to an absolute minimum, we first meet Patel’s mysterious Jay in London packing things into a holdall  for a trip away. The fact that he’s got four different passports on the go is a clear indication that this isn’t going to be a normal holiday abroad.

Jay flies over to Lahore, Pakistan and, after sourcing rental cars, begins shopping for some rather unusual items in the city and in the Karachi frontier region- a shotgun being the least likely to be on most holiday-makers’s must-pack lists.

He then heads over to the titular wedding, picking up some luggage and clothing on the way. Staking out the bride-to-be’s family home, he borrows a light from the armed guard at the entrance and pauses for thought. The fast-moving pace of the movie doesn’t let up for long, however. Before we know it, Jay is inside the home and kidnapping Samira (Radhika Apte), shooting at, and possibly killing, the guard on the way.

From then on a story of rapidly shifting motivations and secrets is revealed. Essentially hired to remove Samira from her arranged wedding, Jay remains professionally calm when his client- Samira’s arrogant British boyfriend Deepesh (Jim Sarbh) – considers backing out of the plan due to the heat caused by the media picking up news of the abduction.

Winterbottom brings a solid combination of thriller and travel adventure with The Wedding Guest . Always on the move, the pace of the film is swift and the audience is only let in on the bare essentials. We only know of Jay’s name from the credits, he doesn’t reveal his real name to Samira, even as romance appears to flicker on the horizon.

The Pakistani and Indian locations are beautifully brought to the screen, with the sights and sounds of Lahore, Amritsar, Jaipur, Delhi and Goa all presented with a clarity of vision that provides a fully immersive experience. The energy of the places is well contrasted with the icy cool of Jay, whose calm exterior only begins to falter after one too many unexpected hiccups.

Winterbottom certainly has a great eye for the road-movie/travel experience with his journalistic comedy TV shows The Trip (to Italy and Spain) showcasing his way around a travelogue. But rather than improvised laughs,  The Wedding Guest is built on taut set-pieces and keeping information and specific characterisation at arm’s length. The two leads produce great work with the minimal backstories they have, and the essential dilemma of a bride-to-be wanting a better life is one that is all too believable.

The Wedding Guest opens in US Cinemas March 1st.

Flickering Myth Rating  – Film: ★ ★ ★/ Movie: ★ ★ ★ ★

Robert W Monk  is a freelance journalist and film writer.

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‘The Wedding Guest’ Review: On the Run in India

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By Ben Kenigsberg

• Feb. 28, 2019

“The Wedding Guest” soon reveals that it has one of the most misleading titles of the year. It’s a thriller, not a light comedy of manners — but exactly what sort of thriller it will be is something that the director, Michael Winterbottom, keeps tantalizingly at bay.

When we meet Jay (Dev Patel), a stoic, handsome man of mystery, he is departing London for Pakistan. He rents a car and, on what appears to be a lengthy, less-than-straightforward route, stops at a gun shop. We eventually learn he’s looking for a woman named Samira (Radhika Apte). And when he finds her, he ties her up and puts her in the trunk.

Winterbottom, the globe-trotting, genre-hopping British filmmaker, has done well with dark territory before (the 2010 Jim Thompson adaptation “The Killer Inside Me” ). And if in the past he’s come across like a dabbler — a director more interested in trying different styles than engaging with any one of them — here, his restless, touristic tendencies suit what might otherwise have been a rote on-the-lam scenario.

The filmmaker wrote the script himself, and read no further to keep the surprises fresh. Samira was indeed about to attend a wedding — her own, to a groom not of her choosing. Jay was hired by Deepesh (Jim Sarbh), the boyfriend the Pakistani-born Samira, who spent part of her upbringing in Britain, has kept secret from her traditional parents. She can go back and get married if she wants, Jay tells her. But if she goes with Deepesh, she’ll never stop running. (It might have been easier to pose this choice before the abduction — and before Jay killed a man during the getaway — but this is a movie that places pacing above sense.)

Deepesh is not the most reliable of paramours, and as Jay and Samira cross into India to meet him, “The Wedding Guest” turns into a rush of international cellphone calls, hotel hide-outs, false identities and phony jewels. The scenery, nicely shot by Giles Nuttgens and covering a wide swath of the country — Amritsar, New Delhi, Jaipur and Goa — is always great, and Patel and Apte’s chemistry approaches scalding levels as their characters grow closer.

Despite all the bobbing and weaving, Winterbottom knows when to pause the proceedings for a ripe, noirish exchange.

“Are you going to kill me?”

“I should.”

“Can I trust you?”

For all its absurdities, “The Wedding Guest” makes it tough not to anticipate how that conversation will pan out.

The Wedding Guest Rated R for guns and getaways . Running time: 1 hour 34 minutes.

THE WEDDING GUEST: A Thriller With No Real Identity

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The latest film from Michael Winterbottom, The Wedding Guest takes us across Pakistan and India in what’s supposed to be a thrilling getaway. Jay ( Dev Patel ) is a British citizen who travels to Pakistan to attend the wedding of what we’re told is his friend from college’s sister. Even from his opening shots as he packs, we see his four passports and know somethings up.

Soon after renting two cars, a hotel, buying duct tape and a gun, Jay goes and kidnaps the bride-to-be, Samira ( Radhika Apte ). From there, the pair go to to India as Jay attempts to stay under the radar. Early on, we learn the kidnapping, and Samira are not exactly what we initially think they are.

While it’s all meant to keep you on the edge of your seat,  The Wedding Guest is plagued by sloppy dialogue and doesn’t know what it wants to be. It never manages to create truly tense moments and struggles to maintain a consistent tone.

Warning: The following contains some spoilers.

Dev Patel Holds The Weight Of The Film

Jay isn’t given much in terms of a unique personality – most of his dialogue is purely expositional and meant to move the plot forward. He’s given even less when it comes to his character’s background. Nonetheless, Dev Patel is able to carry the lead with strength. He’s cold, even stoic throughout most of the film. He’s always confident and calculated, never wavering in his mission or unsure of how to escape a situation. Even in scenes that feel random and nonsensical, he plays off of Apte convincingly.

Patel shows that he can easily carry a lead in a bigger Hollywood or studio thriller (even one, dare I say that isn’t written specifically for someone with brown skin), especially one with better writing that manages to get the audience’s blood pumping.

We Never Feel The Stakes Come Into Play

From the moment the action picks up, there never seems to be any great risk. The kidnapping happens with one minimal problem and Jay isn’t pursued as he escapes with the bride. Throughout the film, Jay sees articles and hears rumors that the police are looking for him. It’s even made to seem like a big deal back home in England. He did just kidnap a British expat after all. News stories are where the chase ends – it never seems like Jay and Samira are remotely close to being caught.

The score would have you believe they are always just one step ahead of the authorities. It’s meant to make everything feel more tense than anything on screen is, and midway through, it becomes triumphant when nothing of particular note occurs.

Even the one time lives hang in the balance of a scene, the implications are never made to seem too drastic and Jay is able to fix the situation without any real obstacles. In one such scenario, Jay and Samira urgently need new passports. One phone call and thirty seconds later, he’s connected with the best guy in town. It all adds up to what feel like a series of events for the sake of a series of events.

The Story Never Finds Its Identity

As the story moves into the third act,  The Wedding Guest decides to change from a thriller based around a kidnapping to a romance based around a theft. It’s a pretty wild turn that comes out of left field and moves the goalposts on the entire film for no real reason. Jay and Samira are two characters that would make a great couple and be their own interesting plot, though the change from kidnapping a bride to sharing a bed happens too conveniently and too quickly to be believable. There’s no montage a la V For Vendetta where you have any reason to believe why these two should fall for each other.

It’s even more confusing because the characters’ objectives and motivations seem to change on the drop of a dime several times. It all makes very little sense, and even the ending is wrapped up in the easiest way possible.

Beyond the story, the film doesn’t offer much of a point of view about anything. It briefly touches on Indian and Pakistani relations, but quickly moves on. It approaches the subject of the role of women and their freedom in that world, but backs away before it says anything of substance.

Ultimately, The Audience Is Left Feeling Empty

While  Dev Patel brings the best performance possible given what he had to work with, it’s hard to feel empathy or root for any characters in a story that never really knows what it wants to be. Forced dialogue moves Jay and Samira over the minimal obstacles that they face with ease. Tonally, the film shifts and changes and is unable to get the audience invested in any real way.

What did you think of  The Wedding Guest?  Let us know in the comments below. 

The Wedding Guest was released in the U.S. oin March 1, 2019. 

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The Wedding Guest Movie Review: Dev Patel Brilliantly Carries This Deceptive Thriller

When The Wedding Guest first begins, it seems like it’s going to go in a dark direction. Our main character Jay (Dev Patel) is traveling to Pakistan and buys items like a gun and some duct tape. It’s clear he’s up to no good and little is known about him. But we’re still wondering what his plan is and why he even has a gun. But after his purpose becomes revealed and he kidnaps Samira (Radhika Apte), a bride to be, the tone slowly turns on a dime. At first, the ominous score and the restraint of Dev Patel’s performance make it seem like we’re in for a moody suspense thriller. However, the film ends up being a meditative yet thrilling genre bender.

In addition, it’s a solid showcase for Dev Patel who proves he’s a true blue leading man. He shows enough brooding restraint to give Jay plenty of mystery. But he’s also able to showcase plenty of star charisma and physical sex appeal. Come to think of it, this film should serve as an audition tape for him to be the next James Bond. After Daniel Craig finishes his run, they’re going to need someone who’s able to demonstrate the charming veneer of the famed calculating anti-hero. Well, Dev captures that perfectly so they might as well give him a tuxedo and the keys to an Aston Martin.

That being said, Radhika Apte manages to be a scene stealer. Apte brilliantly plays her damsel character with sly self-awareness and has terrific chemistry with Dev Patel. Not to mention, Apte slowly walks a thin line between damsel and possible femme fatale, playing up the film’s eventual noir intrigue. It feels like a “star is born” performance from her and here’s hoping that we’ll be seeing more from her in the future.

While not much violent or explosive action happens in The Wedding Guest , it is still made watchable thanks to the mystery surrounding both Jay and Samira. As previously mentioned, Jay may have little backstory but Samira still has a few secrets up her sleeve. Also, the editing by Marc Richardson brilliantly demonstrates the sexual tension between the two of them. During the scenes where they sleep in the same bed together, it seems like they want to engage in intercourse but keep their distance. However, with each passing sequence, they have closer body contact.

Most of the film involves a lot of traveling with little high stakes. However, the editing tricks used in those bed sequences allow the picture to transition from being a brooding kidnapping thriller to a sexy noir drama. Once the picture becomes more meditative, both Richardson and writer/director Michael Winterbottom seize the opportunity to indicate that the movie will become more alluring as it progresses.

As it turns out, The Wedding Guest is a sly, sensual thriller that manages to be brilliantly deceptive. Much like how our main character slowly unveils his mysterious facade, the film’s tone continuously unravels which makes it an intriguing experience. Plus, Dev Patel carries this film with absolute ease as the alluring anti-hero. There might be those who aren’t drawn in because of its lack of heavy stakes. But at the very least, it’s still worth watching because of Dev Patel’s performance.

Matthew St.Clair

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The Wedding Guest Review

19 Jul 2019

The Wedding Guest

It might sound like the kind of romcom Katherine Heigl might have starred in during the mid noughties, but The Wedding Guest is a very different kind of beast. Instead, writer-director Michael Winterbottom has produced a lacklustre thriller that, despite some good performances from the two leads, doesn’t find the textures or ways to elevate the genre in the way you’d expect from the protean filmmaker.

As thrillers go, The Wedding Guest doesn’t get going in a hurry. We get a patient, engaging build-up as Jay ( Patel ) travels from London to Pakistan, with Winterbottom building up the interest with intriguing details: he hires cars using four different passports, buys two different guns, a roll of duct tape and a suitcase on wheels. His motives are still not clear when he arrives at a wedding where the kids quiz him about England (“Is Leicester beautiful?” “Very beautiful”), but it soon becomes evident he has been hired to ‘kidnap’ Samira (Apte) from an arranged marriage and deliver her to boyfriend Deepesh (Sarbh) in Amritsar.

What develops is an under-powered Hitchcockian pot boiler with shifting loyalties, dubious motives and multiple twists and turns as the couple travel across the country by car, train and — at one point — moped. Winterbottom doesn’t really deliver on the thriller elements of the story — it’s a film that feels less gripping as it goes along — but also doesn’t really explore the character dimensions or thematic ideas around the sexual politics in Pakistan either. It’s fun to see Dev Patel play a character with edge and shadows — he does a good job — and Radhika Apte flourishes as the movie progresses. But, after such a promising start, it’s just a shame that the sense of tension and excitement goes AWOL pretty quickly.

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‘the wedding guest’: film review | tiff 2018.

Dev Patel stars in Michael Winterbottom's latest, 'The Wedding Guest,' as a man who goes to Pakistan and kidnaps a young woman about to be forced into an unwanted marriage.

By Todd McCarthy

Todd McCarthy

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Michael Winterbottom’s latest, The Wedding Guest, has all the elements of a classic film noir — a shady man kidnapping a woman for cash, a long road trip, seedy hotel rooms in squalid cities, slow-burning heat between the two leads — but absolutely none of the style. The constantly changing backdrop of Pakistani and Indian locations represents the only real point of interest here, as the director’s original screenplay feels like a rough draft and the characters’ attitudes are almost constantly sour. Commercial prospects are nil.

Winterbottom loves shooting all over the world but, lately, his only journeys worth taking have been his food-eating trips with Steve Coogan and Rob Brydon. Those guys give good dialogue, which is more you can say for the dully monotonous duo at the center of this flat abduction tale.

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A solitary figure who projects the aura of a hit man, Jay (Dev Patel) heads from the U.K. to Pakistan, where he buys a couple of guns (no problem), makes a road trip and kidnaps a young Muslim woman, Samira (Radhika Apte), who willingly goes with him because she’s about to be forced into an unwanted arranged marriage. Along the way, Jay shoots to death the armed guard posted at the house. He feels no remorse.

Given that most Westerners would never think of taking a road trip that involves crossing the Pakistani-Indian border in remote areas, there is passing interest in observing these unique locations, as well in the squalor of New Delhi and the relaxed charm of a remote beach resort, where the couple finally has the romantic encounter we’ve been waiting for all along.

Unfortunately, it’s a mild, passionless thing. The fact that Samira is actually glad to have been abducted since it has saved her from a loveless marriage is an agreeable twist, but it isn’t followed up emotionally; we hear almost nothing about it and we don’t learn what the ramifications might be, even though the case of her disappearance remains a news story Samira and Jay follow in newspapers while they’re on the run.

Along with the screenplay’s one-quarter-baked nature — it must have been clear at the outset that the drama was far from fully developed in the script — the big problem is Patel’s character. Is this the first time he’s killed someone? He seems to feel nothing afterwards. He does seem to know his way around weapons, so what’s his background? We have no idea what he thinks or feels about anything, so he remains both a cypher and bore throughout.

More would have been welcome from Samira as well. Unexpectedly liberated from the straitjacket of her intended marriage, she’s now a free woman, but what might she do with this unexpected freedom? Again, Winterbottom has allowed his dramatic garden to go drastically unwatered.

The only memorable aspect of the film, then, is the range of locations — the massive crowds, depressingly similar and squalid commercial districts, bare-bones hotels, dusty roads, aging trains, hints of danger everywhere. 

Winterbottom has extensively documented his wanderlust throughout his career, but providing such skeletal stories just doesn’t cut it. His adventurous attitude reminds of the late Anthony Bourdain, but he doesn’t deliver the meals.

Production companies: Revolution Films, Riverstone Pictures Cast: Dev Patel, Radhika Apte, Jim Sarbh Director-screenwriter: Michael Winterbottom Producers: Melissa Parmenter, Michael Winterbottom, Deepak Nayar, Nik Bower, Dev Patel Executive producers: Andrea Scarso, Peter Touche, Norman Merry Director of photography: Giles Nuttgens Production designer: Ravi Srivastava Costume designer: Natalie Ward Editor: Marc Richardson Music: Harry Escott Venue: Toronto International Film Festival (Special Presentation)

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The Wedding Guest (2019)

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The Wedding Guest

This propulsive, globetrotting thriller from acclaimed director Michael Winterbottom is a breathless tour through the shadowy underworlds and hidden realms of Pakistan and India. Jay (Slumdog Millionaire’s Dev Patel) is a man with a secret who travels from Britain to Pakistan to attend a wedding—armed with duct tape, a shotgun, and a plan to kidnap the bride-to-be (Radhika Apte). Despite his cool efficiency, the plot quickly spirals out of control, sending Jay and his hostage on the run across the border and through the railway stations, back alleys, and black markets of New Delhi—as all the while attractions simmer, loyalties shift, and explosive secrets are revealed. Pulsating with the sights and sounds of the Indian subcontinent, The Wedding Guest conjures a colorful world where danger lurks at every turn and nothing is as it seems.

The Wedding Guest Review: Kidnapping Thriller Stumbles After Strong Start

Michael Winterbottom explores Pakistan and India in his latest globetrotting adventure The Wedding Guest, starring Dev Patel

The Wedding Guest Trailer Crashes the Party and Kidnaps the Bride

Dev Patel takes a stab at turning himself into an action star in The Wedding Guest from director Michael Winterbottom.

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Movie review: 'The Wedding Guest' is a quirky but thin thriller

This image released by IFC Films shows Dev Patel in a scene from "The Wedding Guest." (Ganesh Patil/IFC Films via AP)

No one going to see "The Wedding Guest" should expect a rom-com. The always-likable Dev Patel does star in it as a hunky guy who travels to a wedding party but he's not been invited and he really ruins the wedding.

That's because he's brought along not a tasteful 10-piece bakeware set as a gift for the happy couple but duct tape, fake passports, some guns and zip ties. His hope is to put the bride in his trunk.

Michael Winterbottom, the director of "24 Hour Party People" and "A Mighty Heart," has channeled Quentin Tarantino for his latest, a sparse and often quiet love story set against some of the most crowded spots in Pakistan and India.

The poster for the film is a little misleading, with Patel in full menacing mode beside an ominous looking fire (look close: Is that a body?). There is violence onscreen, but this is not "Reservoir Dogs." The trailer also pumps up the thriller aspect of the film but it's much slower than that.

"The Wedding Guest " has actually got a thin story, but one saved by great acting and electric footage, from the rooftops in Amritsar to the crowded streets of Jaipur, as our heroine and hero travel through India, which we are told is "the perfect place to get lost."

Patel ("Slumdog Millionaire" and "Lion") plays a mysterious guy named Jay who goes to Pakistan from the United Kingdom to kidnap bride-to-be Samira (a riveting Radhika Apte).

But things don't go according to plan and the kidnapping plot quickly unravels, forcing Jay and Samira, now weirdly teammates, to scramble. Will they become something more than captive and mercenary? Will her family and the police catch up to them?

Winterbottom's script is maddeningly thin on backstory or any revealing dialogue. We never learn why Jay is so proficient with weapons and SIM cards or what he thinks about really anything. We never learn much about Samira, either, or plumb the depths of her unhappiness.

Winterbottom seems to want us to see them just as they are now, rushing from Mumbai to Delhi to Goa, taking cars, trains, mopeds and buses. Many scenes are silent or contain just a few words. ("We have to go," is barked multiple times.) It is a film that requires careful watching to try to unlock the body language and determine if there is a double-cross or a romance brewing.

Patel and Apte have a slow-burning chemistry. Their characters didn't exactly meet-cute -- remember the zip ties and duct tape? -- and rushing from hotel room to bus stations isn't exactly conducive to emotional connection. Above all, they are smooth, cool, resourceful and unruffled.

Winterbottom has proven very adept at road pictures -- "The Trip," "The Trip to Italy," "The Trip to Spain" and "On the Road" -- and you might be forgiven this time for believing he's less interested in Patel and Apte than in celebrating the colours, sounds and hustle of the streets of India. The soundtrack includes Desi tunes by DJ Vips, DJ Raj and DJ Harpz.

So "The Wedding Guest" might not completely work as a thriller or a satisfying romance, but for anyone missing India or planning to go, it's a film worth getting lost in.

"The Wedding Guest," an IFC Films release, is rated R for "language, some violence and brief nudity." Running time: 94 minutes. Two and a half stars out of four.

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The Wedding Guest

• A story centered on a mysterious British Muslim man (Dev Patel) on his journey across Pakistan and India.
• Jay is a man with a secret who travels from Britain to Pakistan to attend a wedding--armed with duct tape, a shotgun, and a plan to kidnap the bride-to-be. Despite his cold efficiency, the plot quickly spirals out of control, sending Jay and his hostage on the run across the border and through the railway stations, back alleys, and black markets of New Delhi. All the while, attractions simmer, loyalties shift, and explosive secrets bubble to the surface.
• Jay (Dev Patel), a young British man, packs a stash of passports and arrives in Pakistan, travelling to Younganabad. Jay lands in Lahore and hires a car using his fake British identity documents. He purchases 2 guns from an arms shop. He travels to Faisalabad where he hires another car to travel to Younganabad. He also buys duct tape, a suitcase and other supplies in Faisalabad. Despite only speaking English, he carries out a careful plan, sneaks inside a home prepared for a wedding. Jay introduces himself as a friend of the bride's brother Hasan, with whom he studied at University. Jay uses his cover to scout the entire locality and the wedding house. He also looks at the security arrangements and exactly how they have been deployed. He enters the bride's house late at night when everyone is asleep. Jay kidnaps the bride, Samira (Radhika Apte) but is intercepted by a guard while coming out the house. The guard threatens to shoot and thus Jay shoots him dead. Jay puts Samira in the trunk of his car and escapes before an alarm is raised. As it is the middle of the night, Jay has no trouble driving a long distance in a very short time. At Faisalabad Jay again changes into his first car, but this time he puts Samira in the back seat. Jay offers Samira a choice: return to her family and arranged marriage, or continue to Lahore and join her boyfriend Deepesh (Jim Sarbh), who hired Jay to rescue her for 15,000 pounds. Unwilling to be married, Samira chooses the latter. The plan is that Jay will be Faisal, and Samira is his sister Mariam Zaman. They are from Karachi, but both were born in London and speak almost no Urdu. Their cover is that they on a trip to visit the Golden Temple in Amritsar. Once they enter India, they will travel to Delhi and Rajasthan, before meeting up friends from London in Goa. Jay gets Samira to change clothes at a highway hotel. They catch a taxi from the airport to the Wagah border. They cross the border into India with fake passports and drive to Amritsar, where Deepesh fails to meet them at the designated hotel as planned. Jay purchases 5 phones and 10 international SIM cards and reaches Deepesh, who says that he will be in India the following day and asks Jay to meet him in Delhi. Samira says that she trusts Deepesh. Taking a train to Delhi, Jay meets with Deepesh and demands his payment. Media attention on the kidnapping and the guard's death have changed Deepesh's mind, and he offers Jay a further 20,000 pounds to abandon Samira back in Pakistan. Deepesh argues that the police are looking for Samira and it won't be long before she is found. Jay informs her (Jay had recorded the entire conversation with Deepesh and plays it for Samira) and she reveals that they had planned to live off of diamonds Deepesh had stolen from his family's business. Jay asks Deepesh to meet him in Jaipur. Jay finds that the media in Pakistan already knows that Samira was Deepesh's girlfriend. Samira's family was against Deepesh as he is not a Muslim, he is not a Punjabi and he is an Indian. Jay picks a new fake passport and ID documents for Samira. Meeting in Jaipur, Deepesh gives Jay half of the money, promising to have the rest the next day. Jay asks Deepesh to meet Samira insisting that she won't go back to Pakistan without meeting him. In the morning, Deepesh drives the two to a hotel at the outskirts of Jaipur and refuses to stop the car when Samira asks to speak in private. Jay pulls out his gun, forcing him to pull over and give him the remaining money. The area is very isolated with not much traffic. Arguing with Samira, Deepesh hits her, and Jay drags him out of the car. Jay asks Deepesh to hand over the diamonds. Deepesh warns him not to trust Samira, but Jay demands the diamonds, and beats Deepesh to death after he attacks Jay with a rock. Unsure whether to trust each other, Jay and Samira agree to split the diamonds and go their separate ways. She finds the diamonds hidden in Deepesh's shoe, and Jay burns the body. They check into the hotel using Deepesh's passport. The plan is to advertise loudly that Deepesh and Samira are going to Nepal, and instead head South to Goa. Samira sews the diamonds into the hem of her dress. Jay's contacts lead him to a fence who provides them with fake identities and a buyer for the jewels. The jeweler refuses to handle the sale after appraising one of the stones at over $100,000. Samira is clear that she does not want to return home, so they head to Goa. In Goa, Jay and Samira rent a house on the beach and give in to their mutual attraction. Samira asks him for his real name; he replies "Aasif" but she knows this is not true. She later slips away with her fake documents and most of the money, and he awakens in the morning to find her gone. She calls to apologize, saying that while he can go home, she never can. Jay tells her to call if she ever needs anything as she rides a bus toward her new life.

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