The Wedding

I first met (and fell in love with) Halle Berry in Alex Haley's `Queen' (1993), TV mini series of some 259 minutes, shown here in Europe in two episodes. An excellent production with careful directing and good acting, especially from the beautiful Halle, even including the necessary aging which takes place throughout the film. I next found her as Khaila in `Losing Isiah' (1995), which was not bad, I suppose, just too predictable, although some scenes showed some pretty good interpretative skills. However, Charles Burnett's job on `The Wedding' – and Halle's attempt to play out the story – was just dreadfully, drearily dismal. There was little imagination, negligible capacity to make the characters `feel' alive, real; it just simply turned out to be another saga-like drudge. Whether a half-black lovely young woman can or shouldn't marry a perfectly white jazz musician, or whether she should or mustn't marry a an honestly black man, is just so out of date, it does not rub off. You would have to be really off your head for the beautiful Halle Berry, or simply an avid consumer of glossy women's mags to be able to stomache this film. Give it a miss.