Themes: Eccentric Families, Mothers and Daughters, Fathers and Daughters
Main Cast: Lena Olin, Gabriel Byrne, Claire Danes, Adam Trese, Mili Avital
Release Year: 1998
Country: US
Run Time: 110 minutes
MPAA Rating: PG13
Plot
Theresa Connelly makes her directorial debut with her own screenplay, a semi-autobiographical romantic comedy-drama, set in working-class Detroit, about a large Polish-American family run by matriarch Jadzia Pzoniak (Lena Olin). Her four boys obey her, but adolescent Hala (Claire Danes) is rebellious and independent. Although happily married to bakery worker Bolek (Gabriel Byrne), Jadzia engages in an almost-open affair with Roman (Rade Serbedzija). Hala sneaks off for late-night trysts with her handsome neighbor Russell Schuster (Adam Trese), resulting in her pregnancy. After her parents learn the news, Russell is forced to marry Hala, and a big Polish wedding is planned. Shown at the 1998 Sundance Film Festival. ~ Bhob Stewart, All Movie Guide
Review
It's impossible to dispute suburban Detroit cleaning woman Jadzia Pzoniak when she tells the rich lover who wants to own her that, with five children and a husband, she's already a queen. As Jadzia, Lena Olin proves to be first-time filmmaker Theresa Connelly's strongest ally in her quest to invest the squabbles and liaisons of a working-class Polish family with lyrical grandeur and absurd, understated humor. Connelly amusingly highlights the sly evasions and outright bravado that each of the clan's members must practice in order to find fulfillment outside the family. But it's the gravitational force of the family itself that lends Polish Wedding's central drama an epic intensity. Olin's fierce matriarch, simmering through a long, uneasy truce with domesticity, yearns for the spark of passion even as she dominates her children's lives. Meanwhile, daughter Hala (Claire Danes), the darling of the family, walks the same fine line between passion and respectability. Although Olin's performance is a revelation, Danes can't quite match her firepower; the complex emotional shadings of the film's final stretch elude the young actress. But with rock-solid Gabriel Byrne onboard as the family's wry, resigned patriarch -- and with Connelly's rich sense of place and community anchoring the film -- Polish Wedding often succeeds in its mission to celebrate the desperate passions of ordinary lives. ~ Brian J. Dillard, All Movie Guide
As implied by the name, the film'sd plot takes place within the Polish American community of Hamtramck, Michigan - girlhood home of director Theresa Connelly - at some time between the 1950s and 1970s. Virtually all characters are Polish Americans, though the actors playing them are mostly of other ethnic origins.
Jadzia is the matriarch of a big Polish family of five children. She is happily married to Bolek but is having a long-term relationship with Roman. Her daughter Hala is having an affair with the neighborhood cop and becomes pregnant. He is consequently pressured to marry her.
Members of the Polish American community pointed out that the movie incorrectly presents many aspects of Polish culture.
Kielbasa (sausage), especially cooked is rarely consumed for breakfast, while each meal in the movie contains it. Although this is still practiced by some people.
A Procession of the Virgin and selection of an actual virgin to lead it does not happen in the Polish Roman Catholic Church.
