Ugh, the daughter-in-law


First of all, I just want to say that I really enjoyed the movie... it doesn't pretend to be more than it is, even with Meryl starring.

Anyway, the only problem I had was the daughter-in-law, Emily, I mean, talk about snob. To me, she came across very unpolite and rude from the moment she met Ricki. I know she's the fiancée, but to me she's trying to butt in a family problem that doesn't concern her... how tacky to try to justify not telling her about the engagement and not inviting her to the wedding with moronical excuses. Son and mother have a problem, let's keep it that way. And jeez those snooty wedding guests, looking her up and down. And I understand the daughter-in-law was embarrassed during Ricki's speech - she couldn't know where it was going -, but again with the attitude? I could almost see her eyes rolling to the back of her head. In the end she relented, and so did everybody else, because the mother of the groom actually knows how to rock, but I wanted do slap some sense into Emily.

I know some people feel entitled and what-not, but truly educated people never act that way, even if your significant other has a problem with said parent... You can obviously take that "You have a problem with him/her, I'll have one too" stance, but unless that person actually does something that warrants your bad side, it's so disrespectful to act as if you have a chip on your shoulder.

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I agree! She really annoyed me. I couldn't believe how she was acting at the wedding. I know it is her day but she should have been able to tell her new husband was really touched by what his mom was doing for him. So shut up and smile!

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I agree she was a dick. But I don't think in general it's always proper to just stay out of a family feud like that. She probably hates Ricki because she cares about her husband and sees all the pain Ricki has put him through. That's a perfectly reasonable chip on the shoulder if the two significant others are appropriately close.

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Pride is not the opposite of shame, but its source. True humility is the antidote to shame.

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I dont think he hates her though. If you remember, the heavily medicated sister said Josh wanted to see her Adam didnt.

I think the daughter in law was just a snob. If you notice her parents were the only ones that didnt get up to dance at the end and stayed pissed off.

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She's not in it much, but the wedding is a big part of the film - such a thinly-drawn, bourgeois b**ch stereotype! Her and the whole bunch of judgemental wedding guests - which I think was overdone - nearly ruined the films for me!

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Emma seemed very snobby and uptight for me.

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Isn't that the whole point of the characters, as well as the wedding scene in general? To make us all squirm from second-hand embarrassment and encompass in one person all the snobbery at the wedding so we feel more empathy for Ricki having to deal with it?

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She was butt-ugly to boot! And her face-pulling did her no favors either. Think how much he was messed up to end up with that!

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Thank God someone else thought so too! She was just plain AWFUL and RUDE! Who the hell treats the mother of the person you're going to marry like that upon meeting??

"Good times, noodle salad"

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You could plant the wedding invitation too! I'm a gardener and while I do think its a cool idea its not very practical.

She was a P.C. nightmare it seemed.

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That they could plant the wedding invitation was totally lost on me. Thanks for calling attention to that.

I thought Emily looked like death warmed over, barely, at the restaurant. I thought maybe she was secretly a zombie or something.

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The son was an attractive guy and his fiance looked like a vampire!

I don't mean to be unkind but her character was unlikable from the start and the actress was unattractive. She was also one of the green freaks, which is fine, but it's like anything. Balance. Don't seem pretentious.

I read the script and it gives a lot of little details about how expensive the "rustic wedding" was and some interesting stuff about maybe why Ricki didn't make it and more info on her first album.

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Honestly, until she finally smiled during the dance, I thought there was going to be a second divorce among those kids. She was so uptight and frigid for the whole movie; I couldn't figure out why a guy played by Sebastian Stan () would be paired with a character like her.

It seemed as if there was a deleted subplot there, where her parents were super mean and snobbish and totally opposed to her marrying Ricki's kid.

"What race are you? If you don't tell me I'll just...assume the worst."

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I think you're right in that there was probably at least one scene cut in the final edit.

I imagine the in-laws as upper middle class, ultra-conservatives, country club mid-westerners who opposed their daughter marrying into a family of divorce, with a mother who left her children to pursue being a rock musician, and a father who remarried into a bi-racial marriage.

Thing is, it's not the sort of film that inspires you to go out and buy the DVD or Blu-ray, so that you can pour over all the bonus and deleted material.

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True. I'm not going to invest in a DVD when I could barely care while watching it on TV...

I did wonder if I missed something, though. They briefly showed an older dark-haired couple at the reception. I think at one point the husband stands up, like the dad in Dirty Dancing or something, and the wife stops him. Then they both like, silently refuse to dance. I figured they must have been her parents, and maybe I missed some dialogue that would make these characters make sense...

Your version of the story is probably spot on. Rich conservatives who hated the thought of their princess marrying into a nontraditional family. And that might have been interesting! I think something got lost in the editing.

"What race are you? If you don't tell me I'll just...assume the worst."

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No, those are the parents of the bride. The father was going to get up and make a scene over Ricki, but the wife just sits him down.

The apple doesn't fall far, no doubt Emily already had Josh's balls carefully locked up.

"You didn't come into this life just to sit around on a dugout bench, did ya?"

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Yes, I know those were the parents of the bride. I said so,

"What race are you? If you don't tell me I'll just...assume the worst."

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You did. I misread, thought you were referring to someone else.

"You didn't come into this life just to sit around on a dugout bench, did ya?"

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Cool, no worries.

"What race are you? If you don't tell me I'll just...assume the worst."

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