MovieChat Forums > Confetti (2006) Discussion > Well, I thought it was great!

Well, I thought it was great!


I thought this film was great, but there seems to be more criticism than praise for it on here, so I thought I'd try to refute the main criticisms and at the same time try to say why I thought it worked. Just want to say now that these are my opinions only and I don't intend to ruffle any feathers by this, and it's not aimed at any specific people, just the general feeling from comments and reviews I've seen on this site.

The most frequent complaint I've seen about this film is that people say it is "not funny". In my opinion it is funny, but it is subtle and of a smaller scale, much like real life day-to-day humour is. I think people's tastes are spoiled by the fact that so much humour we are exposed to here (i.e. a lot of American stuff) is all cheesy slapstick that's just not at all sophisticated and very in-your-face. So when people create a film with more realistic humour, everyone complains that they're not wetting themselves and falling on the floor rolling around in hysterics, or as one reviewer on this site said, that there were no "large-scale comical incidents". Now, I don't know about your lives, but I laugh a lot, as do my friends, and I can't say I experience "large-scale comical incidents" very often... and I'm not sure why in an entirely improvised script, anyone would expect anything so artificial. I thought it was a hilarious film because it was realistic, because although the whole "competition" was a ludicrous idea, that the humour generated by the characters was great, because you can identify with bits of it, be it the overly-negative interfering mother-in-law, or the competetive, confident girl who everyone knows is painfully insecure. Yes, I wasn't dying of laughter, but this film made me laugh a hell of a lot more than most "comedy" does, simply because of how real it was and how excellently the actors performed their roles.

Then there are people that complain it was "boring", again I suspect this is because most people expect (hugely unnatural) laugh-a-minute japery when they see something advertised as a comedy, which is a shame. Granted, Jimmy Carr's presence in the film was exaggerated by the trailer, but given that I'm not much of a fan myself, this didn't disappoint me.

I've also seen people criticise this film because of its allegedly "bland" characters. Again, are people really spoiled by things like Friends and all of that American cheesy humour that their characters have to be big, bold and completely artificial? Yes, because I'm sure in real life your friends can easily be pigeonholed as "the kooky one", "the neat freak", "the nerd" and so on (!). The characters in Confetti, whilst obviously stereotyped to a certain extent, were believable as actual three-dimensional people, not just devices used to engender ridiculous "comic" situations.

At the end of the day, if you don't find it funny, you don't find it funny. Simple as that. I just think it's a shame that what I think is a gem of a film has received such negative reviews simply because it doesn't fit the hugely Americanised idea of what a "comedy" is meant to be, and because people expected differently. I went to see this film with an open mind and was both humoured and touched by it, something that doesn't happen to me very often at the cinema these days. So to conclude, I'd recommend seeing this film if you haven't already, and try to appreciate it for what it is, instead of expecting it to fit neatly into the comedy genre.

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Are you actually trying to blame bad comedy on America? Now THAT'S a laugh. It's really easy to do that when you only name a few $hitty shows that the US has put out, like Friends. But let's be fair here, Coupling was even worse than Friends, which is hard to understand, as it is basically Britain's answer to Friends. I could name terrible British shows until I'm blue in the face, but I would never say that the UK only churns out crap JUST because some of it really sucks. The main reason I want to see Confetti is because Marc Wootton and Jimmy Carr are in it, and I wouldn't necessarily consider them to be "sophisticated". If humor was meant to be sophisticated, then somewhere, something went wrong--and leave America the hell out of it.

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It's a very funny film, but you have to let yourself go and laugh at silly things - Like Robert Webbs penis.
The wedding planners were fantastic, absolutely wonderful brilliant lovely characters - when he hid behind the big ball and said "that was one of my top ten most teriffying moments" I thought I was going to explode from laughter!
I took five friends along to the cinema with me (and they trust my judgement - I had to drag them to see walk the line and they LOVED it) they were all green wing/peep show virgins but still enjoyed it.

The only anoying thing was that no one understands my stephen mangan crush... "who goes around calling themselves jesus?"

"Hello I'm Adam from Adam and Eve"
Shirley Ghostman.

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I thought that "confetti" was very good, especially after I had had a day or two to think about it. That is why i think many people are dissapointed: it is not a laugh a minute slapstick type film, I can't remember a single carry on style joke about the naked people, there is subtle humour in there mixed in with the obvious jokes. See the film, and be prepared to give it a bit of thought.

Anne

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I haven't seen it yet, hopefully will tonight, but 'stories that don't go anywhere'is really part of the point the original poster is making....ie: that's just so American to say that. Everyone knows a lot of Eusopean cinema doesn'tn eatly resolve and tell you how to feel, that's what makes it European Cinema, that's why we like it; because it's a different animal.

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I understand your Mangan crush! :):):) I understand all too well.

Looks like breakfast, smells like your auntie!

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I think America often has a very different sense of humour to us British. I mean, just look at the U.S. version of The Office. In my opinion, the British version is far far funnier - but American viewers may disagree. I think we have a more subtle sense of humour in some ways (well, it depends what you mean by subtle i guess as alot of British humour is "toilet-humour" but i still think our comedy is often played for more subtle laughs).

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I think America often has a very different sense of humour to us British. I mean, just look at the U.S. version of The Office. In my opinion, the British version is far far funnier - but American viewers may disagree. I think we have a more subtle sense of humour in some ways (well, it depends what you mean by subtle i guess as alot of British humour is "toilet-humour" but i still think our comedy is often played for more subtle laughs).

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The American Office is written by Ricky Gervais. It also is exactly the same is the British one, but arguably with worse actors.
I think these days British humour is cringe humour or looking at normal situations in a funny way.

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Does it have the same script? I don't believe so. Although written (all be it i bet, assisted with a team of American writers) by the same Brtish writers as the British version, it has been written specifically for an American audience and it is therefore written (or rather generally produced, for example, in terms of cinematography) quite differently.

The Little Britain guys Matt Lucas and David Walliams have been commisioned to make a U.S. version and they commented in a recent interview, that they needed to change many parts of their comedy for the U.S. version because they a) couldn't "get away" with some of the sketches/lines that they can in the UK and b) they believed that the American audiences wouldn't find some of the sketches humourous - because they have a different sense of humour.

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Thank you very much,i worked on the film and could'nt have put it better myself.

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I thought it was brilliant... OK so it had 3 Green Wing characters (2 in main roles and one in a small cameo) so that was partly why I went to see it but it was genius. It was genuine comedy rather than scripted slapstick comedy and the fact that the whole thing was improvised was astounding. My favourite bit was 'Who goes around calling himself Jesus?' - brilliant acting from Stephen Mangan there.

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I watched it because I'm a massive Green Wing and I loved it. I am amazed that something so funny was completely improvised. Thats nothing to be sniffed at. Stephen Mangan stole the film.

I'm not going back there, big bitches

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[deleted]

*applause*

I myself would say that I didn't think it was consistently amazing, but it is a mockumentary, and life isn't consistently amazing either, but in both life and the movie there are those great moments that make it all good. And that's what I thought of the film; it had BRILLIANT moments that made me love the movie.

I liked Josef's reaction to Isabelle's nose job, it was hilarious. And in the end when he kept singing about the nose.

AND Josef at counselling and him with the guitar was just really sweet and made the character so much more believable and likable.

Looks like breakfast, smells like your auntie!

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AND Josef at counselling and him with the guitar was just really sweet and made the character so much more believable and likable.


That was such a beautiful moment, and showcased Steve's amazing acting. All my friends fell in love with him in that scene.

I'll see you in Zurich

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EXACTLY! Even if you thought he was a total wanker, at that moment you'd just melt and see him as a person.

Looks like breakfast, smells like your auntie!

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I really liked it, too.

I was smiling all the way through, and laughing outright in a few places.

The only actor I knew was Martin Freeman, so I can't pass judgement on any of the others, only to say that I thought they fit their roles beautifully. (I really liked the two wedding planners - I thought they were perfect.)

Loved the ending, with all three weddings, particularly the musical number. I thought it was hilarious when the dancing ladies came out tap dancing - that was a laugh out loud moment.

Each to his own, I guess, but I was surprised to see some negative reviews. I went expecting a nice British comedy, and that's what I got. I'm looking forward to seeing it again on DVD.

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Yeah I didn't really know what to expect before watching it. But I just finished watching it and I really enjoyed it at the end!

My favourite were the Naturist couple - it was funny how he was trying to convince her to be nude despite other people's objections. And their ceremony was sweet.

The Tennis wife with her nose job... lolll.

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OP, I love this sort of humour but I don't think you should say slapstick or 'big' comedy things are for stupid people/americans, think about Monty Python, it was completely ridiculous.

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I thought it was a wasted opportunity. It has some good moments but as a whole it is disappointing. The tennis couple were under-used - something could have been done with them trying to sabotage the other competitors - and the potential sublot of Jesus was wasted. The muscial loving couple were irritating (and Jessica Stevenson didn't look good at all in this). The best thing about this film was the pair of gay wedding planners.

...now I do it just to watch their f----n' expression change.

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