Ceremony [Blu-ray]

Director: Max Winkler Max Winkler

Overview

A young man wants a second chance at love, though the object of his affection isn't sure there was ever any love in the first place in this independent comedy. Sam (Michael Angarano) is a relentlessly confident would-be author in his mid-twenties who stumbled into a short-term relationship with Zoe (Uma Thurman), a beautiful woman in her late thirties with a bad habit of dating men who aren't right for her. While Zoe is very much over Sam, he's convinced they were truly in love, so he's upset to learn she's engaged to marry Whit Coutell (Lee Pace), a successful but colossally arrogant director of wildlife documentaries. Sam wants another chance with Zoe, so he persuades his best friend, Marshall (Reece Thompson), to join him for a trip to Long Island, where they'll hang out with some of their buddies. What Sam really has in mind, though, is to crash Zoe and Whit's weekend-long wedding festivities and convince her that he's the right man for her. However, Zoe's immediate reaction suggests that persuading her to leave Whit for Sam is going to be a very tough sell. Ceremony was the first feature film from writer and director Max Winkler, son of actor Henry Winkler.

Product Details

Release Date:	06/21/2011
UPC:	0876964003926
Original Release:	2010
Rating:	R
Source:	Magnolia Home Ent
Region Code:	A
Presentation:	[Wide Screen]
Language:	English
Time:	1:30:00
Sales rank:	39,750

Special Features

Deleted scenes; Outtakes; Extended scene; Max Winkler makes Ceremony; Making of Ceremony; Behind the scene sfootage; "A Year in a Tent - a film by Whit Coutell"; HDNet: A look at Ceremony

Cast & Crew

Performance Credits

Michael Angarano	Sam Davis
Uma Thurman	Zoe
Reece Daniel Thompson	Marshall Schmidt
Lee Pace	Whit Coutell
Jake Johnson	Teddy,Composer
Brooke Bloom	Margaret Cornish
Harper Dill	Carol Archer
Rebecca Mader	Esme Ball
Nathalie Love	Blonde Maid
Charlie Moss	Nico Spicer
Lisby Larson	Nina Pileggi
Paul Amodeo	Bruce Singer
Philip Carlson	Butler
Catherine Russell	Party Guest #4
Jack Koenig	Party Guest #5
Jerrin Holt	African Man
Von Jeff	Von

Technical Credits

Max Winkler

Max Winkler	Director,Screenwriter
Emilio Diez Barroso	Producer
Polly Johnsen	Producer
Matt Spicer	Producer
Frank Siracusa	Producer
Alejandro García	Executive Producer
Corrie Rothbart	Executive Producer
Josh Zeman	Executive Producer
Jason Reitman	Executive Producer
Billy Rovzar	Executive Producer,Executive Producer
Daniel Dubiecki	Executive Producer
Jeffrey Keswin	Executive Producer
Lewis Goldstein	Sound/Sound Designer
Jun Nakamura	Sound/Sound Designer
Kerry Barden	Casting
Paul Schnee	Casting
Manny Siverio	Stunts
Darlene Caamano	Producer

Editorial Reviews

Writer-director Max Winkler grew up with one foot in show business as the son of actor Henry Winkler, best remembered for his long run on the iconic sitcom Happy Days. When a guy grows up with The Fonz, television's measure of cool in the 1970s, as his dad, you can't help but wonder who his role models will turn out to be. Well, in the case of Max Winkler, there's one obvious answer -- Wes Anderson. Winkler's first feature film, Ceremony, so closely resembles Anderson's work in terms of character, narrative approach, and style that many viewers may find themselves waiting for Bill Murray, or at least Jason Schwartzman, to pop up somewhere. That said, while Ceremony may not look or feel terribly original, Winkler has clearly learned a lot from his study of Anderson's oeuvre, and he's made a comedy that's intelligent, stylish, and effective even when it's emulating someone else's work. As Ceremony begins, Sam Davis (played by Michael Angarano) is hosting a reading of his new book for children. However, the only person in attendance is Sam's seriously neurotic best friend, Marshall (Reece Thompson), who hasn't seen Sam in over a year, and we discover the book is the latest in a series that Sam has written but hasn't been able to publish. Sam has proposed that he and Marshall spend a few days catching up and relaxing along the Long Island coastline, but it doesn't take long to figure out that Sam is stringing Marshall along because he needs a ride and a wingman. A few years before, twentysomething Sam had a one-night stand with Zoe (Uma Thurman), a beautiful woman in her late thirties. Sam has been madly in love with Zoe ever since; however, while she has a certain fondness for Sam, she can't take him seriously as a boyfriend and is engaged to marry Whit Coutell (Lee Pace), an Oscar-winning documentary filmmaker with an ego as big as his beachside mansion. Sam has decided to crash Zoe and Whit's weekend-long wedding celebration, with Marshall in tow, in hopes of winning her away from Whit before it's too late. Despite Sam's powerful self-confidence in the face of long odds, though, it becomes clear that Zoe doesn't really want him around, no matter how mixed her feelings for him might be, and that Marshall was a bad choice for a sidekick, given his constant paranoia and habit of accidentally hurting himself. Ceremony starts feeling like a Wes Anderson homage in its first few minutes, and the points of similarity just keep piling up as the film goes along. Consider the arrogantly charming but clueless and delusional romantic fool (showing no small resemblance to Max Fischer in Rushmore); his wealthy, successful, and older rival (again, right out of Rushmore); their shared object of affection who seems too old and too bright to be interested in the protagonist (more Rushmore); and the sometimes uncomfortable interaction between middle-class and upper-class characters (Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums). Then there's Winkler's careful widescreen framings full of idiosyncratic color schemes, the soundtrack full of esoteric pop tunes from the past, the fractured romanticism of the narrative, the undertow of caring but dysfunctional relationships among family and friends, the deadpan humor...this couldn't be much more of a Wes Anderson movie if Winkler had asked Wes to direct the script himself. Despite all of this, Ceremony moves with brisk, good-natured enthusiasm, and Winkler clearly knows how to make a film that looks good (cinematographer William Rexer II certainly helps) and draws solid performances from his actors. Michael Angarano manages to make Sam genuinely charming even when he's behaving badly (which is often), and he's able to build something of a character that could easily have been thoroughly hateful. Reece Thompson does similarly impressive work as Marshall, making the character a splendid comic foil, and Jake Johnson scores impressively as Teddy, Zoe's swaggering burnout of a brother. While Uma Thurman is more of an object to be adored than a proper character as Zoe, she plays very well off Angarano and she's just as beautiful and captivating as the role requires. Ceremony is ultimately too derivative for its own good, but despite the feeling that most of this is borrowed goods, the film succeeds as smart, light entertainment; it's playful and agile, making the most of its swift 90-minute running time, and shows that Max Winkler has genuine talent, even if he needs to develop a more individual approach before he gets to work on his next project.