For a slice of life (or larger than life) in the Samoan community, Sione's Wedding is a perfect vehicle. Of course it's over the top, but in all caricatures there are some truths.
Four guys, well past their sell-by date, habitually spoil community celebrations with their drunken bad manners. The minister of the Samoan church tells them they are banned from the next wedding, (Sione's) unless they can bring partners - women being considered to have a calming influence on Samoan men. Ha!
And the film is about the various ways they try to find dates. The old double-standard applies of course: Michael can sleep with a different girl every night (some of them married) and be regarded as a bloke to look up to. When a Samoan girl arrives from the Islands and shows the same sort of tendencies, Hello! She's a tramp.
There's the guy whose drinking is spoiling his relationship with his live-in, and the hopeless dreamer who haunts the personal ads for his "ideal girl", and the "wimp" (who does not come across as wimpy at all) scared of women and living with his Mama well into his 30's.
If you watched this and the movie "No2" you'll get the impression Pacific Islands people are into power-control, macho and alcohol (not that it is confined to PI, but this is what these films highlighted) so it's a shame that in Sione's Wedding, they did not balance that, (as in No.2) with some of the more positive aspects of PI life.
There was the obligatory derogatory reference to a fat person (the way most bad films get a cheap laugh these days) In this case one of the guys took a plump girl to bed and a thin chick later said, 'Euw, you slept with Sasquatch?' Great stuff.
However, one of the funniest lines from the movie (and this will give you the level of humour it relied upon) was with the same big girl,
'You told me you were a Size 14.'
'I am.' '
'Your feet maybe.'
This portrays Samoans the way 'Once Were Warriors' portrayed Maori. In other words there is a *grain* of truth in it but the characters are so stereotyped as to be laughable - where laughter isn't appropriate. And sad where it is.
I've given it such high marks because there is such a rich pattern in the movie, it has so much between the lines, it's the kind of film you think about later and notice lots of underlying themes and messages which don't, at first, strike you. So it's well worth the dollars.
