Muriel's Wedding

This is truly a great Australian film, and still holds up after all these years. The film has always hit a nerve with me in terms of the Heslop's family dynamics (Mum, make Dad a cup of tea!). I can only speak for myself but I grew up in Queensland around the same time (I am aware this was made in New South Wales) and my experience with my family definitely resonates with that of Muriel's with her family. I really thought at the time this came out that this type of family dysfunction was 'an Aussie thing', but I know better than that now that I am older and wiser.

I've never thought of this as a comedy although it has some very funny moments. Even now, I have to be in the mood for Muriel's Wedding due to it's brutally harsh treatment of it's characters. The film is vicious and unrelenting and has made me cry more than once. But it's also a cathartic experience, about a person with flaws like all of us, who is trying to find her own identity, and, despite what she has been conditioned to believe, that she is worthy.