Muriel's Wedding

Los Angeles Times Kenneth Turan

Wickedly mocking but empathetic, able to laugh at its characters while paying attention to their sorrows, this subversive comedy about self-esteem resists the notion that films have to timidly remain within tidy genre rules.

Chicago Sun-Times Roger Ebert

And the casting of minor characters (including Muriel's sister with the naughty-naughty smirk) is flawless.

Christian Science Monitor David Sterritt

High-energy comedy.

ReelViews James Berardinelli

While Muriel's Wedding has its moments of exhilarating humor, it is, as often as not, downbeat and even mean-spirited.

Rolling Stone Peter Travers

A crowd pleaser that spices a tired formula with genuine feeling.

San Francisco Chronicle Peter Stack

There's poignant drama in this brash, sometimes overstated film, and Muriel's transformation is truly touching.

The New York Times Elvis Mitchell

Muriel's Wedding runs into trouble when it looks for poignancy too openly, working better at giddy moments than in its occasional sad ones. Most of the time, Mr. Hogan keeps his story light and surprising.

Austin Chronicle Alison Macor

Thankfully there are no weight-loss montage sequences; what you see with Muriel is what you get, like it or not. This refusal to change or convert the main characters makes the film so appealing.

Variety Todd McCarthy

Most of the action is played for broad laughs, and Hogan demonstrates the ability to generate them, even if the humor is very base and often cruel, making fun of people's looks and ineptitude.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) Rick Groen

Watching this is a feature-length exercise in frustration - comedy that promises to be amusingly black stays uniformly grey; sentiment that looks to be credibly bittersweet winds up badly soured. We're constantly tantalized and perpetually disappointed, but don't despair - there's one terrific bonus...Toni Collette.

TV Guide Michael Forstrom

Ultimately, the comedy here is grounded in self-hatred, hostility, and despair. Nearly everyone who wanders through this brash and deliberately tasteless film is stupid, ungainly, or grotesquely tragic. But this only heightens the pleasure during moments of delirious merriment.

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

The trouble with the movie is that there's nothing to Muriel but her false dreams: We never quite glimpse the woman they're hiding.

Washington Post Hal Hinson

Hogan seems skittish about going all the way with the darker side of his material...It's a bright, buoyant comedy about a very sad young woman -- and, regrettably, the mix just doesn't work.

Chicago Reader Jonathan Rosenbaum

Oscillating back and forth between insulting its two central characters (Muriel and her dad) and showing they have hidden depths, this movie only shows true tact and understanding when it comes to flattering the audience; everyone on screen is strictly up for grabs.