Overview
Move over Muriel's Wedding — Australia's getting another homegrown comedy about life, love and tying the knot. That'd be Top End Wedding, which tells a completely different tale, but looks set to warm hearts all the same.
Premiering at the Sundance Film Festival this week among a record contingent of Aussie flicks, Top End Wedding follows the chaos that comes with popping the question, trekking across the country and trying to track down a runaway relative. At its centre sits newly engaged couple Lauren (Miranda Tapsell) and Ned (Gwilym Lee). Head over heels and heading off to Darwin to stage Lauren's dream wedding — in the super short timeframe of just ten days — they discover that her mum (Ursula Yovich) has gone AWOL.
Tapsell not only stars in the movie, but co-wrote the script. She also reunites with The Sapphires filmmaker Wayne Blair, who sits in the director's chair again here. And if Lee looks familiar (and looks like he should be wearing a massive mop of curls), that's because he's just been seen in Bohemian Rhapsody as Queen guitarist Brian May.
Fellow The Sapphires star Shari Sebbens also features in the new film, alongside a cast that includes New Zealand's Kerry Fox and The Bill alum Huw Higginson. Given the film's title, plenty of the Northern Territory's scenery looks destined for some screen time as well. It's not often that we get an Aussie rom-com that takes a road trip through the top end, after all.
Check out the first feel-good trailer below:
Top End Wedding will hit Australian cinemas on May 2.