I’d say Honeymoon Crasher (now on Netflix) is from the long line of traditional French farces, but that would ignore the fact that it’s a remake of the 2022 Spanish film Amor de Madre. And the more reasonable among us absolutely should deem Honeymoon Crasher a farce, lest it become a troubling exercise in Freudian theory, since it’s a yukfest about a guy who takes his mother on his honeymoon and, for reasons that are too foggy to pinpoint, they pass themselves off as a married couple. Theoretically, this is disturbing; theoretically, this is funny. But in truth, the movie is none of the above, and I’m not sure that’s necessarily a good thing.
The Gist: Lucas (Julien Frison) and Elodie (Clara Joly) are on the very precipice of bliss. It’s their wedding day. Everyone’s watching. They’re about to say their I DOs when Elodie’s ex calls, and she actually halts the ceremony to take it. Uh huh. The guy convinces her to ditch Lucas and join him in his fancy red sports car so they can peel out escaping the wedding and travel the world together as he competes as a racecar driver. Goodbye. As for Lucas, one couldn’t be any more jilted. Jilted within an inch of his life. Maximum jiltage. Jiltmageddon. And in that moment, you can’t help but feel sorry for him, because we don’t yet realize what a doofusy turd he can be.
But before we get to recognizing Lucas’ serial blandness, we have to insert him in a ridiculous scenario that’s ripe for wackiness and excruciating embarrassment. Now, you might mope too, being in his situation. And mope he does. His parents, Lily (Michele Laroque) and Michel (Kad Merad), stop by to see how he’s doing, and find him in a state of despair. Again, understandable. He not only was tossed aside like a peanut shell in a saloon, destined to be stepped on and crushed to dust and swept up and sprinkled on horse manure, but he was left with two nonrefundable tickets for an expensive swanky tropical honeymoon in Mauritius. Considering Lucas’ inability to summon the energy to argue about anything whatsoever, his mother convinces him to take her to Mauritius instead, and he agrees, and will soon learn that she’s more of a live-cannon/loose-wire loon than he ever realized.
It appears that this particular resort caters heavily to honeymooners, so as soon as Lily and Lucas step off the plane, everyone, including the maniacal resort manager Gloria (Rossy de Palma), assumes a May-December thing is going on here. For reasons the screenplay is too lazy and slipshod to explain, Gloria upgrades them to an ultra-posh suite with a pool and a gorgeous view, which somehow, for reasons inexplicable beyond the assumption that the movie’s reality is not at all like our own, compels Lily and Lucas to Just Go With It and pretend to be a couple. They perhaps fear that the revelation of the truth will get them downgraded to a roach-infested janitor’s closet? IDK, bro. And so they participate in cutesy dances and excursions designed for couples, etc., which jeopardizes the spark between Lucas and resort tour guide Maya (Margot Bancilhon), and fuels Lily’s discontent in her real marriage to her actual husband and not the fake marriage to her son, which, of course, just, ew. But there is a handsome older sailboating gent named Peter (Gilbert Melki) showing interest in Lily, who might be contemplating a change. And at this point in this plot, the only thing I can truly say about it is, of course, CHAOS REIGNS.
What Movies Will It Remind You Of?: For the record, I thought Just Go With It was also top-shelf dipshittery.
Performance Worth Watching: Bancilhon lends a little sanity and easygoing charisma to the plot, functioning as a little eye candy and, more importantly, its voice of reason. It certainly helps that her character is the only one who hasn’t lost the majority of their marbles.
Memorable Dialogue: At least Lucas acknowledges the stupid craziness of this moron situation:
Lucas: I think they think we’re a couple.
Lily: It’s funny, right?
Lucas: No, it’s not. It’s gross.
Sex and Skin: Some PG-13 making out on a beach in bathing suits.
Our Take: Honeymoon Crasher is a dyed-in-the-wool mortification comedy, and we are absolutely not here for it. No one should be. It chronicles the wacky adventures of a megawuss and his overbearing mother, and the true force of evil behind it is a slopass screenplay that doesn’t let the cast lean into their characters and find anything of compelling interest in their hearts, or even to engage in a little bit of hyperbole to render them colorful and larger than life and therefore memorable.
The script’s approach to comedy is similarly lazy: You’ve got your oh-no-the-hotel-room-only-has-one-bed joke, indigestion/diarrhea jokes, poisonous-leeches-all-over-you-and-the-only-way-to-neutralize-them-is-with-human-urine jokes, wacky side characters, the consumption of illegal hallucinogens and literal monkeyshines (because a literal monkey skitters about, stealing Lucas’ toilet paper and cell phone). These bits are introduced and discarded, frequently without punchlines. Such half-assedness has me wondering if the script was a byproduct of the writers’ vacation, who seem to have hastily scribbled it on bar napkins while drunkenly remembering all the cliches and wearisome yuks from many other, better, but still not very good movies.
And we haven’t even fed the premise into the woodchipper yet. It’s an awful, braindead, too-stupid-to-deserve-to-exist idea, existing without even a modicum of pretense that might render it logical even in the most addlebrained and moronic alt-reality timeline. Problem is, it’s too timid and disinterested in itself to be taboo or provocative, instead leading to an inevitable sentimental bonding session between mother and son. The film also finds a way to wedge a break-up-and-make-up third-act plot into its slapdash Freudian concept, which is by far its most creative and ambitious endeavor. When you find yourself commending a movie for strongarming a cliche into a poorly considered premise, you know everyone’s in trouble. And to be honest, the story’s central ruse is completely superfluous and unnecessary, and without it, the movie either wouldn’t exist, or might be something different. It certainly couldn’t be much worse.
Our Call: Shoulda bought vacation insurance. SKIP IT.
John Serba is a freelance writer and film critic based in Grand Rapids, Michigan.
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