Holy Matrimony

Holy Matrimony follows felonious couple Peter (Tate Donovan) and Havana (Patricia Arquette) as they’re forced to hide out inside a Hutterite community after pulling off a daring robbery, with the movie detailing the fish-out-of-water exploits that ensue as Arquette’s character is forced to marry Peter’s adolescent brother (Joseph Gordon-Levitt’s Ezekiel). It’s a silly yet promising setup that’s employed to consistently underwhelming and middling effect by director Leonard Nimoy, with the movie’s pervasive absence of laughs merely the tip of the iceberg in terms of its many, many problems. This is not for a lack of trying on Nimoy’s part, as the filmmaker effectively pummels the viewer with a variety of jokes and gags – although, as becomes clear almost instantly, there’s just nothing here that’s even remotely funny or amusing. (It doesn’t help, either, that there’s an air of desperation to virtually all of the movie’s attempts at levity, with Nimoy’s increasingly frantic efforts to elicit laughs from the viewer growing more and more obnoxious as time progresses.) And while Arquette is fine as the irritable central character, Gordon-Levitt delivers a hysterical, absurdly over-the-top performance that’s essentially the cinematic equivalent of nails on a chalkboard – with the actor’s ongoing difficulties at stepping into the shoes of his one-dimensional character compounded by an accent that remains unconvincing from start to finish. The end result is a hopelessly misguided comedy that just never manages to find its footing, which is a shame, certainly, given the seemingly can’t-miss nature of its larger-than-life premise.

* out of ****