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The Wedding Singer

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The Wedding Singer is a 1998 romantic comedy film written by Tim Herlihy and directed by Frank Coraci that stars Adam Sandler as Robbie Hart, a wedding singer, and Drew Barrymore as Julia Sullivan, the object of his affections.

The Wedding Singer
Directed byFrank Coraci
Written byTim Herlihy
Produced byRobert Simonds
StarringAdam Sandler
Drew Barrymore
Christine Taylor
Allen Covert
Angela Featherstone
Matthew Glave
Christina Pickles
Alexis Arquette
Billy Idol
Steve Buscemi
CinematographyTim Suhrstedt
Edited byTom Lewis
Music byTeddy Castellucci
Cindy Wilson
Distributed byNew Line Cinema
Release dates
13 February, 1998
Running time
95 min.
CountryUnited States
LanguageEnglish
Budget$21,000,000

The Wedding Singer was also adapted into a stage musical, debuting on Broadway in early 2006 and closing on New Year's Eve. Information on the musical version can be found here: The Wedding Singer (musical).

Plot

Robbie Hart (Sandler), a wedding singer, is looking forward to his own upcoming wedding to his long-time girlfriend, Linda (Featherstone). He's singing at the last gig he has before his own nuptials when he meets the reception hall's new waitress, Julia (Barrymore). She is engaged, too, to a man named Glenn Gulia.

The day of Robbie's wedding arrives and when the bride is supposed to come down the aisle, Robbie instead sees his own sister, who has a note. Apparently Linda "isn't coming." Robbie is devastated. His friends and family try to cheer him up, but he's a wreck. Linda finally arrives at Robbie's house and explains that she is not in love with the way he is now -- that she only loves the way he used to be, when he was in a "real" band, not a wedding cover band.

Robbie tries to go back to his work, but it does not go well. His miserable situation gets in the way of his ability to entertain guests at weddings. Julia, the waitress, tries to cheer him up, and asks him for a favor. She asks him to help her plan her wedding, because of his experience with weddings. He's reluctant to, at first, but eventually agrees.

As Robbie and Julia begin to spend more time together, they start to become closer. Julia asks Robbie what went wrong with Linda, and Robbie admits that he should have known that Linda wasn't the one, because once, when they were flying over the Grand Canyon, Linda wouldn't change places with him to let him look out the window, even though she had seen it before. Robbie asks how she knew that Glenn was the one, and Julia says that she knew she wanted someone she could grow old with -- "and Glenn will make a really good-looking older man."

Julia's cousin, Holly, asks to be set up on a double date with Robbie and Glenn. Julia gets jealous and ends up drinking until she gets sick. While the girls are in the bathroom, Robbie has a chance to see Glenn in action. It turns out Glenn is a womanizer who has been cheating on Julia frequently for some time and doesn't intend to stop after marrying her. Meanwhile, Holly is confused when Robbie turns down her advances -- until she realizes that Robbie has a crush on Julia. In an attempt to win Julia, Robbie goes to get a job downtown, one with "security", why Julia is marrying Glenn according to Holly. He ends up embarrassing himself, however, with his lack of real world knowledge.

Julia and Robbie both grow more confused as their feelings grow stronger. Robbie finally decides to tell Julia how he feels, but mistakenly gets the impression that she is happy to be marrying Glenn and changes his mind. Heartbroken, he gets very drunk and stumbled home, to find Linda, his ex-fiance, waiting for him by his house. She tells him she wants to get back together, and Robbie reels and passes out. In the morning, Julia decides to tell Robbie how she feels, but she is astonished when Linda answers Robbie's door, wearing only a Van Halen t-shirt. Julia says, "You must be Linda," and Linda says, "Yeah, that's me, Robbie's fiancee." Julia is gone by the time Robbie wakes up and kicks Linda out. Meanwhile, Julia, now hopeless, wakes Glenn up and tells him she wants to get married right away, and he happily offers to go to Las Vegas with her.

Back at home, Robbie is inspired by a 50th wedding anniversary celebration to go after Julia. Julia's cousin Holly arrives just in time to let him know that Julia has gone off to Vegas to marry Glenn. Robbie, Holly, and Robbie's friend Sammy go off to the airport and Robbie gets on the next plane to Vegas. He has to buy a first class ticket, since the coach tickets are sold out.

Julia and Glenn are on a plane already, and it becomes even more obvious how wrong Glenn is for Julia. "Do you want to have some fun and gamble, or do you just want to get married?" asks Glenn. "I just want to get married," answers Julia. When Julia asks if she can switch seats so she can see the "lights of Vegas," Glenn will not switch, further showing how wrong Glenn is for Julia. He also rudely ignores Julia when her arm gets bumped by the drinks cart that is being pushed up the aisle, yet asks her for a beer when it comes back.

Robbie makes some friends in first class, including Billy Idol (playing himself). He finds himself telling his whole story to the enthralled fellow passengers on the plane. When a flight attendant (Shanna Moakler) comes in complaining about a rude man in coach, Robbie figures out that Glenn is on the plane -- and that Julia must be on the plane with him! With the help of Billy Idol and the plane's staff, Robbie sings over the loudspeaker a song he has just written about his love for Julia, "Grow Old With You". He emerges from behind a curtain and sings to an ecstatic Julia. Billy Idol and other passengers and crew team up to shove Glenn into a lavatory, and Julia and Robbie confess their mutual love.

The movie closes as Julia and Robbie get married, as the band, with Steve Buscemi on guitar and vocals, plays the song "True".

Trivia

  • Robbie tells Linda at one point to "Get out of my Van Halen T-shirt before you jinx the band and they break up". Although the band did not actually break up, lead singer David Lee Roth did leave Van Halen in 1985, the year in which the film is set.
  • The character George is a spoof of Boy George.
  • In the episode of The Simpsons titled "Kill the Alligator and Run", Homer makes a reference to this film with his line "Bring on the rappin' Granny!", though this could also be a reference to Howard Stern Show regular "Rapping Granny".
  • In the scene in which Robbie is left at the altar, a string version of Journey's "Don't Stop Believin'" is played. At the end when Robbie and Julia get married, Spandau Ballet's "True" is sung by Steve Buscemi's character, the drunk best man from the first wedding, now this wedding's band leader.
  • The scene where Robbie and Julia get married to Spandau Ballet's "True" is almost directly copied off of the Simpsons' episode A Milhouse Divided. Marge and Homer get re-married in this episode while a band plays the exact same song. The Simpsons episode aired over 2 years earlier.
  • The wedding Photographer who thinks Robbie and Julia are a couple mentions they are meant to be together forever like Woody Allen & Mia Farrow, Donald Trump & Ivana Trump and Burt Reynolds & Loni Anderson. While married through the 1980s, all these couples were divorced by the 1990s (Allen and Farrow were never actually married).
  • The film is set in Ridgefield, New Jersey in 1985, yet the fashions and music styles featured was a mix from 1980-1985.
  • The Canadian band Boys Night Out have a song called "I Got Punched In the Nose For Sticking My Face In Other People's Business," based upon the quote made by the character Glen Gulia.
  • Set in 1985, the film prominently features New Wave style music, as well as various others from that era.
  • In 2000, readers of Total Film magazine voted The Wedding Singer the 43rd greatest comedy film of all time.
  • The film's two stars, Adam Sandler and Drew Barrymore, re-teamed in the 2004 romantic comedy 50 First Dates.
  • This film is number 7 on Bravo's "100 Funniest Movies."
  • The DeLorean used in the film is missing the DMC logo on the front grille.
  • Steve Buscemi and Jon Lovitz are both uncredited for their roles as the best man at the first wedding and Jimmie Moore, respectively.
  • Soap opera actress Maree Cheatham, well-known for playing a nun on Days of our Lives, played the flight passenger who asked Billy Idol what the "mile high club" was.
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