Richard's Wedding

The film received a generally mixed response from critics. David DeWitt of The New York Times called the film "a slice of the John Cassavetes, John Sayles and Richard Linklater life" and added "Richard’s Wedding is modest in umpteen ways, and if your cinematic diet craves the substantial, be forewarned. But the film’s DIY ethos has a heart, which makes the script’s small talk about humanity not so small after all."^[2] Ronnie Scheib of Variety added, "Turkel constantly undermines the feel-good with the ridiculous and vice versa, vacillating between infantile insults and professions of affection, a duality that ultimately wears thin. Still, if the message sometimes veers uncomfortably toward sententiousness, it reaches its comic apogee in Alex’s born-again ex-junkie cousin Louis (Randy Gambill), now an online-ordained minister. Proffering thought-provoking questions about the nature of friendship and demanding crack with equal sweetness, his helpfulness and obliviousness run neck and neck."^[3]

Conversely, Michael Atkinson of The Village Voice viewed the film very unfavorably, calling it "A handheld New York indie that dallies in the queasy DMZ between hipster-narcissism and a self-satisfied critique of hipster-narcissism".^[4] Kenji Fujishima of Slant Magazine gave the film a more mixed 2 out of 4 stars, saying "Richard's Wedding may be admirably nervy in some ways, but in the director's preference for above-it-all contempt over tough-minded empathy, the film ends up seeming little more than an 89-minute hatefest, with no special insights into human nature to make the endeavor worthwhile."^[5]

• Richard's Wedding at IMDb