Back in the days when I first attempted to be an adult – first desk job, first flat, first live-in girlfriend – there was no such thing as streaming, catch-up, Blu-Ray, 4K, HD or even widescreen tellies. Instead, I owned a 15in Sony Trinitron TV that had taken me months to save up for on my £10-a-week school paper round – smaller than the massive one we’d rented from Currys as students – and a VHS player. The only films I owned were three ex-rental cassettes I’d bought from the local Blockbuster: There’s Something About Mary, Enemy of the State and The Wedding Singer.
Once we’d watched a bit of the terrestrial channels (I was too poor to afford Sky), my girlfriend – who was training to be a teacher – would go to bed at 10pm and I’d settle down for the night with one of my three films. My favourite was The Wedding Singer because it has it all – comedy, 80s hairdos, a great soundtrack, a farcical ending and loads of quotable lines. (“Say hi to your brother Tito”, “Once again, things that could have been brought to my attention YESTERDAY”, “Why don’t you write a song about it? You can call it – I got punched in the nose for sticking my face into other people’s business.”) I wasn’t alone in my passion. One bored day at work, my friend Phil emailed me a good half of the script to Dumb and Dumber he’d written from memory. “But what if he shot you in the face?”
The Wedding Singer stars Adam Sandler in one of his first mainstream roles, no longer doing the silly voices and mannerisms he put on for cult classics Happy Gilmore and Billy Madison. Sandler plays a – yes – wedding singer who sinks into depression after getting jilted at the altar for losing his ambitions of being a rock star. He then gradually falls in love with Drew Barrymore (who wouldn’t?) even though she’s due to marry her (it turns out) cheating boyfriend, Glenn (Matthew Glave). You can guess how it all turns out. Along the way, we get to meet a Sugarhill Gang-rapping granny, a Boy George lookalike who only knows the first verse to Do You Really Want to Hurt Me, and what I argue is Steve Buscemi in his best ever role: the brother of the groom, giving a drunken speech in a hideous flouncy pink shirt. (“Remember that time in Puerto Rico when we picked up those two – well, I guess they were prostitutes, but I don’t remember paying … ”)
With its bad perms, dodgy tashes, oversize lapels and florescent Lycra, the 80s setting made me feel old even in the 90s. Come 2025, I shudder to realise that if Marty McFly went back in time 30 years from now, they’d be playing Parklife at the Enchantment Under the Sea dance, and the song from the near future that “I guess you people aren’t ready for yet, but your kids are going to love” would be Wonderwall. The 80s, meanwhile, are as far away as 2065. Yikes.
One thing I love most about The Wedding Singer is the soundtrack that includes You Spin Me Round (Like a Record), Blue Monday and Every Little Thing She Does Is Magic. Barrymore sings a bit of 99 Luftballons into her oversize headphones. Sandler gets to perform his own compositions: Somebody Kill Me (“I was listening to the Cure a lot when I wrote this”) and Grow Old With You – the latter he performs on a plane to stop Barrymore from marrying the evil Glenn. The ending features a brilliant cameo from 1998 Billy Idol playing 1980s Billy Idol, who wakes from his booze-addled slumber to shove Glenn in the airplane toilets. (“Excuse me, sir. I have to serve the beverages.”)
By the way, I haven’t even had to watch the film or look at the internet to check all these facts and quotes. I know I’m right, because I have The Wedding Singer committed to photographic memory. Another contributor to this column miffed that he’s watched his feelgood movie, Notting Hill, maybe 12 times. Pffft. I’ve must have watched The Wedding Singer at least 100. At my peak, it was a two- or three-times-a-week habit. It’s a habit that – if only I still owned a VHS player (or had a subscription to Prime Video) – I’d happily start up all over again. Although, with hindsight, I really should have just gone to bed early.
The Wedding Singer is available to rent digitally in the US and on Amazon Prime in the UK
