How The Wedding Singer Movie Failed To Make Glenn Likable?

(*Warning for possible spoilers for The Wedding Singer 1998 American romantic comedy film)

The Wedding Singer (#ad) is about 2 people who thought they’d found the love of their lives, but they eventually end up getting together due to some circumstances.

How can Julia fall in love with The Wedding Singer if she’s engaged to Glenn?

Julia Sullivan (played by Drew Barrymore), the main female character, is engaged to be married to this guy named Glenn Gulia (played by Matthew Glave).

The moment we saw her and Robbie Hart (played by Adam Sandler), the title character, meet, we can already tell that they’ll eventually end up together. The question now is how Julia can fall in love with Robbie even though she was all set to get married to Glenn.

Don’t turn Glenn into an evil character for plot purposes

The challenge for The Wedding Singer is not turning Glenn into a horrible and unlikable person just to give Julia a reason for leaving him and choosing Robbie instead.

In another article, I talked about how and why the movie didn’t succeed in that challenge. But is it really impossible to keep Glenn a fairly likable character while still getting Julia and Robbie to fall for each other?

In the beginning, Glenn wasn’t a bad character

The answer is no, and, actually, The Wedding Singer was already showing that it can do that, which is why it’s unfortunate that it had to change its course and turn Glenn into a cheating, selfish, and horrible person just to get him out of the picture.

It’s okay if you’re not yet ready to get married

For example, when Glenn said something along the lines of having to marry women in order to stay with them, that could be interpreted or seen as him simply not being ready for marriage yet.

That could also explain why he proposed to Julia but didn’t set a date for their wedding yet. There’s nothing wrong with that since it’s understandable that some people need more time before they can be ready for married life since, after all, this is a life-changing decision.

How Glenn showed that he really loves Julia?

When Glenn agreed to the kind of wedding that Julia wanted, instead of just having the two of them go to Las Vegas like he wanted, because that was what would make his fiancée happy, it showed that he does love her and care about her.

This particular scene showed him being understanding, considerate, and unselfish as he considered Sullivan’s feelings and made a decision that would make her happy.

Wedding preparations

It was understandable and believable for Glenn to not be all that interested or into planning weddings, even his own, because there are people who can find this a daunting task and would really rather let others handle it for them.

But the fact that he didn’t help Julia with the wedding preparations even though he knew it would make her happy could be a sign that he’s just not that into her. After all, if he really loved her, it could be argued that he’d do things that he might not want to do just because he knows it will make her happy.

Julia and Glenn are incompatible

These kinds of things can already help show that Julia and Glenn are just not that compatible with each other. If The Wedding Singer continued to show us scenes that conveyed the incompatibility of the two with each other or that they’re much too different to be together, then it can easily make the audience believe that Julia falls out of love for Glenn and starts falling for Robbie instead.

All that can be achieved without having to turn Glenn into a cheating, unlikable, and generally horrible person. He didn’t need to undergo a complete personality makeover just to give Julia a reason not to love him anymore. Because if Glenn was that kind of mean and nasty person, then what reason did Julia have for falling in love with him in the first place?

Your thoughts and opinions

What do you think about all this? Feel free and welcome to share your thoughts and opinions by leaving a message in the comments section below.

*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki (CC:BY-SA) based on the image by CoDLia (CC:BY-SA) from deviantArt
- Image is meant to represent Julia and Glenn since the figures appear to be a couple and yet they don’t seem to be all that close considering how they’re not really looking at each other
- Second pic is from Amazon.com; link shown above
- YouTube video features a scene from The Wedding Singer
- This was previously published elsewhere

Reasons Why The Wedding Singer Movie Is Believable And Realistic

(Warning for possible spoilers for The Wedding Singer 1998 American romantic comedy film, which is about a guy who is looking for love after his heart is broken)

Passage of time

One of the things that I liked about the The Wedding Singer (#ad) movie was the way that it handled the passage of time. It was able to make the events that transpired seem realistic and believable because of the way that it showed the audience how much time passed.

How long should depression last?

For instance, Robbie Hart (played by Adam Sandler), the title character, was very depressed when his fiancée, Linda (played by Angela Featherstone), didn’t show up at their wedding. As a result, he didn’t act like his usual self for quite a while. And that’s a good thing because this makes the story seem believable and realistic.

It’s great that Robbie didn’t suddenly get over his depression and his misery at having Linda leave him. Instead, it took him several days before he started being his usual self again. Even then, there were still traces of how he felt when the incident in question happened.

The Wedding Singer has a believable love story

Another thing that makes this film commendable in terms of the passage of time was how Robbie and Julia Sullivan (played by Drew Barrymore), the main female character, didn’t suddenly fall in love with each other.

Instead, this happened gradually. They started out as friends, and, as they got to know each other, they became closer until they really started falling in love.

That made their romance believable and realistic because Robbie was still trying to get over his failed relationship with Linda so it wouldn’t be right for him to just suddenly fall for someone else so soon after he’d just been dumped.

As for Julia, she was currently engaged to this guy named Glenn Gulia (played by Matthew Glave) so it wouldn’t be right for her to suddenly fall in love with someone else.

After all, why else would she agree to marry Glenn if she didn’t have feelings for him, right? So it was important to show how Robbie was slowly getting over Linda and how Julia was slowly falling out of love for Glenn before the 2 of them could end up together.


*Notes:
- Image with added text was modified by Freya Yuki based on the image by Rusembell (CC:BY) from deviantArt
- Image is meant to represent the 2 main characters in The Wedding Singer movie, Robbie and Julia
- Second pic is from Amazon.com; link shown above
- YouTube video features a scene from the aforementioned film
- This was previously published elsewhere