My Brother’s Wedding
When we find ourselves having our own priorities, inevitably, someone will get hurt. Even though Pierce seems to hurt everyone at the end of “My Brother’s Wedding,” I can’t view him in a negative light, because I do feel like his heart was in the right place. He can work on his relationship with his brother and his new wife, but there’s only ever going to be one funeral for his friend Soldier. I question why it took him so long to figure out both his brother’s wedding, and his friend’s funeral, were happening on the same day, but that’s the selfish side of him coming out- he was so engrossed in his own feelings that he neglected the needs of everyone.
This is my first film from director Charles Burnett, and it’s exactly the type of film I love to discover. “My Brother’s Wedding” is about a man who is still a child in a lot of ways, viewing the world in black-and-white without the nuance that usually comes with age. Pierce, played beautifully by Everett Silas, works at his mom’s dry cleaning store, and resents his lawyer brother, Wendell (Monte Easter), for getting ready to marry a woman from a higher social status as his; he would have much rather seen Wendell be with a girl of his family’s social status. At the same time, his friend Soldier (Ronnie Bell) is about to be released from prison, and everyone is quick to dismiss him, except Soldier’s mother.
Burnett’s film succeeds, in large part, because of not just the depth of the story he tells, but the way he populates this story with so many varied characters. I love the visits to Big Daddy (Tim Wright) and Big Mama (Cora Lee Day) that Pierce makes throughout the film. I love the dynamic Pierce has with his parents (Jessie Holmes and Dennis Kemper) when they’re at the store, and how his mother takes no shit from anyone (even intimidating a potential burglar) and his father seems to basically be there to horse around with Pierce at the end of the day. There is a “meet the parents” scene where Wendell’s family meets his fiancée’s family that is as awkward, and sometimes funny, as it is tense and dramatic; Pierce definitely doesn’t act appropriately, but should he not be allowed to speak his mind? And then, there’s the time we see Pierce with Soldier’s mother (Sally Easter), and the moments of joy Pierce has when he reunites with Soldier. These are all genuine moments between people, not just points to stop on the way to a predictable ending; there is nothing predictable about where “My Brother’s Wedding” leaves its characters, even if their behavior is predictable as we get to know them.
This is a film that is lived in, and feels very true to life, even if there are times when it seems to delve into melodrama. But melodrama takes place in life, and the ways in which Pierce reacts to the dilemma at the end involving the wedding and funeral happening at the same time are genuine. But so is the way Sonia (Gaye Shannon-Burnett), Wendell’s fiancée, reacts to his unreasonable request. As is the way Soldier’s parents react when he wants the funeral to be moved. Pierce needs to learn that there’s more to life than what’s important to him. The powerful final moments of “My Brother’s Wedding” show him seemingly adrift. I don’t see him staying that way for long, though; he’s just hit the first moment of the rest of his life.
