The mock documentary or “mockumentary” has become a successful genre unto itself, going back to the hilarious This Is Spinal Tap (1984) and its ancestor The Rutles: All You Need Is Cash (1978). The idea is to make a fake documentary, using that form’s often earnest style, but setting it all up as one would a feature. For some reason, perhaps the satirical potential, this technique can produce movies that are often much funnier than the usual comedy.
Confetti is the latest (British) example of the genre — and it is indeed more amusing than any other comedy I’ve seen recently. A magazine of that name, dedicated to weddings, is running a competition for the most unusual themed wedding, and three are chosen to compete: there’s the musical-themed wedding, the tennis-themed wedding and the nudist wedding.
You can just see where all this is going, and the problems that inevitably arise. It’s not as though weddings are stress-free events in the first place: so many invested parties to keep happy! Perhaps it’s not surprising that merely making the necessary arrangements for a wedding, let alone one in competition for a magazine prize, should make the bride and groom-to-be question themselves, their relationship and the sanity of the idea of the wedding itself.
Mockumentary tends to work best when the cast is unknown; it helps if the viewer doesn’t recognise them from other movies, so the documentary feeling is maintained. Here, the only face recognisable (to me) was that of Martin Freeman, who took the lead in The Hitchhikers’s Guide to the Galaxy. The rest of the cast disappear into their roles; if most of them are actors, they are doing a damn fine job.
Confetti is scripted and directed by Debbie Isitt, though “scripted” here means that she supervised a lot of improvisation, which is obviously good for that reality-TV feel you need for a mockumentary. Isitt’s skill at putting together what arises from her cast’s improv surely developed from her work in television and the theatre (the latter including her play The Woman Who Cooked Her Husband, which ran in South Africa a while ago).
In fact, Confetti is entirely improvised; the actors were given no script at all. Moreover, not all are actors: the wedding mag’s assistant editor, a tennis coach, a lawyer and a plastic surgeon are all more-or-less playing themselves. And the big finale, where the three weddings in question are judged, was staged by Isitt and evaluated by invited judges. Going even further, Isitt shot three endings in which each of the three weddings gets a chance to win — and then decided, when editing the film together, which of them would ultimately triumph. (I foresee an interesting DVD release.)
The result certainly provides lashings of humour, and even some credible drama (particularly between the musical-wedding couple and family). Naturally, it all goes well over the top at numerous points; but that, too, is one of the strong suits of Confetti. Visually, it looks a bit TV, but it’s funnier than anything else on circuit. Perfect, one imagines, for the married couple in need of a chuckle. I nearly said soon-to-be-married, but there’s a danger Confetti could cause infinite postponement.