It’s a wonder that anyone’s desire to get married survives the nerve-shredding process of staging a big wedding. In Victor Quinaz’s comedy, it doesn’t. Instead Alison (Alison Fyhrie) and Phil (Philip Quinaz, the director’s brother) break up — but go through with the wedding festivities anyway. They haven’t signed the contract, so they figure, why disappoint everyone looking for a chance to dress up and get drunk?
The movie is shot from the point of view of the videographer recording the wedding, played by Victor Quinaz himself as an egotistical jerk with epic boundary issues. There’s nothing and no one he won’t record, and he also takes advantage of the fact that guests and the bridal couple often forget they’re miked.
This results in a scene where Victor wants to eavesdrop outside the ladies’ room as the bride cries to her mother, but has nothing to film except a kid who’s decided to practice twerking. The reception is funny but doesn’t break new ground, what with the drunk best man and man-hungry maid of honor, etc.
But “Breakup at a Wedding’’ works, because Quinaz has come up with a concept that lets him skewer directorial pretension alongside wedding hysteria. He achieves a lot with harsh light, wavering focus and awful framing that occasionally beheads the person on-screen. It takes genuine skill to make a movie look this amusingly cruddy.