Cheerful Weather for the Wedding
Metascore
49 out of 100

Mixed or average reviews - based on 13 Critics

Critic score distribution:
  1. Positive: 3 out of 13
  2. Mixed: 9 out of 13
  3. Negative: 1 out of 13
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  1. Time Out New York
    Reviewed by: Jenna Scherer
    Dec 4, 2012
    80
    Rice's style is pitched somewhere between Merchant Ivory and Wes Anderson, favoring shots of sad, pretty people looking bereft in elaborately elegant rooms. But it's Jones and Treadaway, both seething volcanoes trapped behind artfully pallid faces, who turn what could've been a candy-coated comedy of manners into a complex, melancholic farce.
  2. The Hollywood Reporter
    Reviewed by: John DeFore
    Dec 4, 2012
    70
    A sustained balancing act between dry upper-crust cynicism and pent-up passions, Donald Rice's Cheerful Weather for the Wedding maintains its uneasy stasis long enough to frustrate some romance-hungry viewers while tantalizing those for whom withheld pleasure is the whole point.
  3. The A.V. Club
    Reviewed by: Sam Adams
    Dec 5, 2012
    67
    Without a source as rich as Jane Austen to draw on, Cheerful Weather feels incomplete, caroming off previous stories without forging its own way.
  4. Los Angeles Times
    Reviewed by: Mark Olsen
    Dec 14, 2012
    60
    There isn't much of anything here that hasn't been done elsewhere, but as the film rolls merrily along it reminds why wedding comedies are such ripe targets.
  5. New York Daily News
    Reviewed by: Elizabeth Weitzman
    Dec 6, 2012
    60
    With costumes taking precedence over character, the movie ultimately seems more concerned with atmosphere than action.
  6. NPR
    Reviewed by: Ian Buckwalter
    Dec 7, 2012
    55
    The comic relief, an attempt to buoy the sinking feeling of Dolly and Joseph's difficulties, steals away the emotional weight of their story. The dominance of the madcap side of the film's split personality lays an airy veneer over Dolly and Joseph's woes, making them seem inconsequential - as unsubstantial as an observation about wedding-day weather.
  7. Boston Globe
    Reviewed by: Wesley Morris
    Dec 13, 2012
    50
    There is one bright spot. Ellie Kendrick plays Dolly's silly, breathlessly romantic little sister, Kitty.
  8. Village Voice
    Reviewed by: Ernest Hardy
    Dec 4, 2012
    50
    The costumes are gorgeous, and the settings are plush, but the acting is merely serviceable, and the film lacks either the wit or the energy of its predecessors. Long before it ends, you find yourself indifferent to the fate of the mismatched lovebirds or anyone else in the tale.
  9. Variety
    Reviewed by: Rob Nelson
    Dec 4, 2012
    50
    A costumer that's well named for being pleasant and conventional but little more.
  10. The Playlist
    Reviewed by: Cory Everett
    Dec 6, 2012
    42
    The film may help "Downton Abbey" fanatics looking to kill a little time in that era but holds little cinematic appeal for the rest of us.
  11. Total Film
    Reviewed by: Simon Kinnear
    Dec 17, 2012
    40
    Buckling under the influence of Downton Abbey, Rice apes its style but none of the substance to create an amiable study of posh hypocrisy without any real satire or social feeling.
  12. The New York Times
    Reviewed by: Stephen Holden
    Dec 6, 2012
    40
    If the movie had more courage, it would lay waste these people as hilariously as Robert Altman's film "A Wedding." But as its bad vibes accumulate, Cheerful Weather exhibits all the energy of a disgruntled wedding guest muttering complaints under his breath.
  13. Slant Magazine
    Reviewed by: Thomas Hachard
    Dec 6, 2012
    25
    The Donald Rice film suffers most from an excessively blunt approach.

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