Muriel’s Wedding (1994)

Matt (00:00:21):

This is 1-Week Rental: A Movie Podcast. My name’s Matt Stokes.

Laci (00:00:25):

And I’m Laci Roth. Did you know there were different places in Australia?

Matt (00:00:28):

Different places, you say. Yeah.

Laci (00:00:29):

There’s Porpoise Spit, there’s Sydney.

Matt (00:00:32):

Both of those place. Okay, I got two.

Laci (00:00:33):

There’s…

Matt (00:00:35):

Tasmania.

Laci (00:00:37):

There’s the other place that she goes.

Matt (00:00:40):

I think there’s only… Oh, Hibiscus Island, of course. Hibiscus Island, not a real place in Australia. It is a real place in Miami. Porpispit. It’s the best town name of all time.

Laci (00:00:53):

Ever.

Matt (00:00:54):

“Porpoise Spit.” And porpoise is just one of my favorite words, period. That’s a great word.

Laci (00:00:58):

And it’s like a non-majestic word for a majestic creature. It’s like the word for a dolphin when they’re taking a shit.

Matt (00:01:07):

When I was a kid and I learned the word porpoise, and I think my dad taught it to me, “Son, sit down.” He said, “Porpis.” It felt like a demeaning way to refer to a dolphin.

Laci (00:01:18):

So you were in agreement.

Matt (00:01:19):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. You see a dolphin out in the ocean and your dad would be like, “I think that’s just a porpoise.”

Laci (00:01:26):

Why? Because it humps in a slightly weird spot.

Matt (00:01:28):

Porpoise spit. It’s spits.

Laci (00:01:31):

It’s not even out the blow hole.

Matt (00:01:35):

This is Muriel’s wedding, which we are talking about on this episode of our show. And if this is your first time joining us because you’re really a big fan of this movie. Hello. Hello. Goodnight.

Laci (00:01:47):

Then you’ll like it here because it’s one of my favorite movies.

Matt (00:01:50):

Yeah. And I think the only way I’d heard of this movie was Laci talking about it. And we did an episode on My Best Friend’s Wedding in January of 2025 that was directed by PJ Hogan, director of this movie. He made two wedding movies. And when I pointed that out to Laci she said, “Oh yeah, it totally makes sense. You can totally see. You can totally tell when you watch My Best Friend’s Wedding that it’s got that Muriel’s wedding spirit in it.”

Laci (00:02:12):

I didn’t say that.

Matt (00:02:13):

You did say it.

Laci (00:02:14):

There’s no way I said that.

Matt (00:02:15):

I promise you said it.

Laci (00:02:16):

Didn’t say it. I probably said it makes sense because I like both those movies. That sounds like something I’d say.

Matt (00:02:22):

So you said a dumber thing than the thing I just gave you credit for saying.

Laci (00:02:24):

Right.

Matt (00:02:25):

Okay. Well, what we do on the show is we tell you about the history of the movie, where it came from, tell you about the people who made it.

Laci (00:02:31):

Also, if this movie has anything that is the spirit of, I’d say it’s like the more heartwarming, more palatable welcome to the dollhouse. It has a happy ending because it is a movie about an awkward person who remains awkward for most of the movie, but has these bright spots and just more in common with the fucking drop dead gorgeous goddamn Julia Roberts who could do no fucking wrong except for she just really likes a fella. I’m just saying. Muriel is a much more relatable character.

Matt (00:03:00):

Well, it’s like about –

Laci (00:03:01):

So there’s no spirit of My Best Friend’s Wedding except for that there are weddings.

Matt (00:03:05):

The spirit of the comedy of the filmmaking, of nailing this very specific tone, of making Julia Roberts, who you assume is the hero queen of your movie, making her the villain and ultimately being about life is not about having a big, beautiful wedding and then you win. It’s about what else you find that’s worth living. Just as in My Bes Friend’s Wedding. My Best Friend Wedding isn’t ultimately about her realizing that Rupert Everett can just be her gay best friend and that’s okay.

Laci (00:03:32):

Right. It’s about her best friend and not her best friend’s wedding.

Matt (00:03:34):

Well, whereas Muriel’s Wedding, it’s a love story between two women who are best friends. That’s what it’s ultimately about. I don’t think you’ve seen the movie Sweetie by Jane Campion.

Laci (00:03:47):

I haven’t.

Matt (00:03:47):

And that is the movie I kept thinking about as I watched this. And then when I did the research, I learned that she, Campion, had some involvement in this movie and it makes a lot of sense, which is just a very specific observational slice of life about people in Australia in sort of just anonymous suburbs of Australia who look very ordinary and it’s just kind of about their kind of sad but normal lives.

Laci (00:04:09):

That’s a slice of life. That is what makes it so… That’s the genre. Oh, that’s a day that I could have.

Matt (00:04:15):

And it’s a little like vignetty. You don’t have to totally live with the consequences of really bad things people are doing at least right away. It’s always kind of relief like, okay, fine. We jumped ahead now. I don’t have to linger.

Laci (00:04:30):

Oh, she’s got a haircut. Thank God.

Matt (00:04:32):

Okay.

Laci (00:04:32):

We’ve moved in time.

Matt (00:04:33):

So Muriel’s wedding, which again, I’d never seen. I think it’s great. Loved it. Loved it a lot. Loved it a lot. And what’s your history with the picture?

Laci (00:04:42):

I don’t know how I discovered it. I’m sure it was a blind buy and I just loved it immediately. I love her. I love the arc of both main characters. I love the family. I mean, I love the characters in the family. They’re just very recognizable to me. I love how much I could not imagine being that best friend, but I could imagine being Muriel. I feel like they bring up lots of things in this movie and then do something intentional and interesting with all of them. This is a movie where every thread has an end and it had a reason for being there. I don’t need that, but when

Matt (00:05:19):

A

Laci (00:05:19):

Movie handles something really well like

Matt (00:05:21):

That,

Laci (00:05:21):

I’m

Matt (00:05:21):

Just

Laci (00:05:21):

Like, “Well, there was

Matt (00:05:22):

A

Laci (00:05:23):

Complete fucking package right there.”

Matt (00:05:25):

You have a character like her mom who, and I’m sorry, I don’t know the name of the actress, but is made up to look like a very forgettable person.

Laci (00:05:33):

I think she’s strikingly beautiful though. That’s what always was weird to me. Is the

Matt (00:05:36):

Mom?

Laci (00:05:37):

I think she’s the most supposed to be like Roseanne and-

Matt (00:05:41):

And She Devil.

Laci (00:05:41):

And She Devil. She’d have a wart or something, but every time I look at her, I’m like, “She looks like a beauty queen just in frumpy clothes.”

Matt (00:05:49):

Well, just in the way she carries herself and performs it and the way she shot, the house she lives in. She is carrying herself like a person who doesn’t matter in life. And the movie’s kind of treating her that way until she becomes a real person and you realize, oh, she was always there, a real person.

Laci (00:06:05):

Oh, you know what? They both set fires. Well, that’s interesting that you pick it up that way. But from me, with my background and my mom being someone who came from abusive childhood to an abusive marriage after marriage, after marriage, I very much saw my mom in her, in the disassociation and the being 5,000 miles away, even though she’s right there and the need to say things are good when they’re not. You immediately feel for her. I never once felt anger toward her. She seemed like a victim. Even though I know in the grand scheme of things, she’s also victimizing the children by not showing up for them and not being strong enough to defeat the dad who is ruining all their lives.

Matt (00:06:54):

But the movie, it’s also like Jane Campion’s movies, it’s so humane that it even understands him and realizes where he’s coming from. And he is also trapped by this world and our ideas about what our lives are going to be and how ultimately kind of small our ideas about what are going to make us happy. His entire thing, it’s not the high school football game. It’s the unailey got elected to the state government came 14 votes short, but that’s the crowning achievement of his life.

Laci (00:07:24):

Well, and it’s so ever present in their life. It was probably such a big… Can you think of how all encompassing it must be to run for any kind of office? Just the signage alone, it must be all you’re thinking about for months. So I love the detail that Muriel’s sister in every shot is wearing one of his shirts. It’s like the only way she could think to get on his good side because she’s got no fucking hope. And they even give her one line the entire movie until all of a sudden you’re like, “Oh, this bitch has a whole memory box and life and bedroom.”

Matt (00:07:58):

I guess that’s what I meant is in a more ordinary movie, these people, you would just assume these are not full – They don’t get

Laci (00:08:07):

To be full.

Matt (00:08:07):

There’s not an entire story behind them, but there is for every single one of these people.

Laci (00:08:11):

And that’s exactly what I mean too. The interior, it only enhances their performance and the way they’re acting throughout the rest of it. So I always feel like it’s even better the second time to watch this movie when you know where it’s going.

Matt (00:08:25):

And I mean, this is my favorite Toni Collette performance and we will talk about her in the history section.

Laci (00:08:31):

And I love her generally. And this is why from this, this is where I got a deep… She’s one of those actresses where I feel like I found her. And that makes sense because this would be

Matt (00:08:40):

The

Laci (00:08:40):

First movie that I really noticed her in because I was so young when I saw it.

Matt (00:08:43):

And

Laci (00:08:43):

If this was her breakout performance, then I did find her. And you can tell, I wouldn’t have understood this enough at the time, but watching it this time, realizing the low budget nature of the credits, how minimalistic they are and homemade, I’m like, “Oh, this really must have been someone’s first, first, first project, funded, but early.” Just little things like that.

Matt (00:09:10):

Yeah. She’s top build, she’s over the credits, but she just had some TV credits and stuff. These are professionals, but it’s not like any of them are stars. But my experience with her is just mom in the sixth sense, always plays tormented, very serious women. And I’ve seen her in comedies too, but this time I’m like, “Oh, she’s a fucking movie star and she’s hilarious and she’s fun and she’s sexy and I’ve never seen her like this.”

Laci (00:09:36):

And this is what happens with people who look reasonably attractive, who just look like ordinary attractive, your everyday good looking gal. They go to horror, they go to genre, they go to comedy. No movie ever thinks that you can treat them serious enough that someone would buy them as the love interest. It’s so totally wrong.

Matt (00:10:02):

Sexiness, attractiveness, appeal. I know that people say this all the time, but it is like 98% just confidence.

Laci (00:10:10):

Absolutely.

Matt (00:10:10):

If you just carry yourself like you’re hot, you’ll be hot. It kind of doesn’t matter what you look like because there are moments where she turns it on and you’re like, “Ooh, hello.”

Laci (00:10:19):

Right. Yes, yes. Very grown up. Well, I mean, and it’s immediate, the moments that kind of just grow her up just the not she needed.

Matt (00:10:29):

And I love, we watched Widow’s Bay recently. I think you were a lot more into it than I was.

Laci (00:10:35):

Not by the last fucking episode, which was complete horseshit.

Matt (00:10:38):

Okay, good. I like that we’re –

Laci (00:10:41):

That it has a second season pisses me off.

Matt (00:10:43):

Widow’s Bay skeptics here on this program, but my favorite part was the Patricia character. And I just feel like a woman loser. I want more stories about women who are losers. I love it. I love to see it.

Laci (00:10:55):

And that’s exactly why the through line with Dawn, for me, from Welcome to the Dollhouse. It’s just that Dawn doesn’t get to see her go back up.

Matt (00:11:02):

Yeah. Well, I’ve only seen it the once when we did that episode a million years ago and she’s a girl. But a grownup woman who’s a loser, I just find so fun.This is where they come from.

Laci (00:11:13):

This is how they start.

Matt (00:11:14):

I guess they have to start somewhere.You’re right. All right. Let’s get into the history. But first, subscribe please on YouTube. If you’re listening, subscribe on the audio. If you’re watching, we have a Patreon, patreon.com/1weekrental. We got all the social media. It’s all in the description. Thank you so much.

Laci (00:11:27):

And if this is your first time or your first, second, third, or fourth time listening to our podcast, and you’ve only listened to recent episodes, I promise I don’t sound like this. I am so frustrated. This is the fourth, I think, podcast we’ve done where I don’t have my voice yet. I hope the microphone picks me up and our audio quality is usually much better. I’d like you to know it is my fault. This microphone is not cutting in and out. I am.

Matt (00:11:51):

She just should never have made that pact with Ursula. She just shouldn’t have done it.

Laci (00:11:55):

Yeah. I got legs and a tail. I didn’t ask for that.

Matt (00:11:59):

What am I going to do with a tail?

Laci (00:12:00):

I got a little bit of my voice back, but a tail.

Matt (00:12:02):

You want to talk history of Muriel’s wedding? Let’s do it. Let’s do it.

Laci (00:12:31):

Sorry, this is an obvious question. Is PJ Hogan Australian?

Matt (00:12:34):

Australian. Well, okay, that’s one more question I had. I mean –

Laci (00:12:38):

I feel like Australian directors start their movies in Australia and then just go to America. And then when they want their roots back, they’ll go back to Australia.

Matt (00:12:45):

Yeah. Muriel’s wedding written and directed by PJ Hogan and Aussie. But you find this movie as a kid, you’re watching a lot of Australian movies or you watching a lot of movies that just aren’t American?

Laci (00:12:59):

No. No, I don’t know how. I’m telling you, it must have been in a giant bin. It must have been when VHS were going out or DVDs were going out. It had to be a blind by. There’s no Ray based on the cover art I would’ve bought it. It would’ve looked like an adult movie. And I don’t think it is. I think it’s super accessible as a teenager at all times, because what’s true about these kids is that they’re all failed sons and daughters that weren’t allowed to grow up. They were completely demeaned by their father to the extent that they never even felt like they had potential to fill. It didn’t even occur to them to try. So they’re all in this suspended, this arrested development, and it’s not till Muriel has adult experiences that she switches out of this childlike thing. The cover seemed grown up.

Laci (00:13:48):

It’s about a wedding. That’s about an older lady. So as a kid, I don’t know how I picked this up except for –

Matt (00:13:52):

This must be the oldest person in the world, 23 years old.

Laci (00:13:57):

I mean, my first onslaught of buying a whole bunch of fucking movies is when I got my first job. So 16, I would’ve still been… Anything outside of high school stuff like prom and sex, I’d been like, “That’s for a different Laci to handle. None of my business.”

Matt (00:14:15):

This did come at the time when Miramax is scooping up international titles and kind of boosting them in America. Il Postino from Italy is suddenly just like normie moviegoing people in America are seeing them. So Miriam’s wedding was kind of a breakout worldwide hit. Kind of unusual for an Australian movie that is so Australian.

Laci (00:14:33):

Unabashedly Australian and not about Australia at all. It’s just about being from a place.

Matt (00:14:40):

Yeah, which is why… And Australian American, they’re the exact same freaking people. They got all the same stuff.

Laci (00:14:46):

I always think that when I see movies about Australia, I just see Americans.

Matt (00:14:50):

But PJ Hogan is the man that this all came from. He would go on to direct My Best Friend’s Wedding. He directed that 2003 Peter Pan movie because it’s like a law that every 18 months a new Peter Pan must be made. And Confessions of a Shopaholic. He made short films and worked steadily on Crews in Australian film and television before he wrote and directed Muriel’s wedding, which was his breakout hit. It was a big hit in Australia, crossed over, made lots of money worldwide. Critical praise. Toni Collette received a Golden Globe nomination in America for this performance best actress in a comedy.

Laci (00:15:22):

Sorry, is Toni Collett American?

Matt (00:15:23):

Nope. She’s Australian.

Laci (00:15:24):

I did not know that.

Matt (00:15:26):

And I’d have given her a dang Oscar nomination for this movie.

Laci (00:15:29):

Fucking

Matt (00:15:29):

Insane. And Rachel Griffiths for supporting actress, but Hogan.

Laci (00:15:33):

I’m sorry, that’s not Juliet Lewis.

Matt (00:15:35):

She does look like Juliet Lewis.

Laci (00:15:37):

Yeah. I had no idea. I was like, she must have got her teeth fixed later in life.

Matt (00:15:43):

She’s older than… I mean, Juliet Lewis at this time is much younger, but they do – God, they look alike. I too was thinking that. And it’s weird because Laci and I never think people look alike whenever I say, “That person looks like that person, Laci,You’re crazy.

Laci (00:15:54):

It’s because of her haircut. You do not have hair blindness. You have face blindness.

Matt (00:15:57):

Okay. I mean, Rachel Griff, you watch Six Feet Under. She was on –

Laci (00:16:01):

Yes. Oh my God. I though that was Julia Lewis too.

Matt (00:16:04):

And she was in my best friend’s wedding. She’s one of those twins who’s one of the bridesmaids.

Laci (00:16:08):

He’s mine.

Matt (00:16:10):

So Hogan based this movie on his own family. There’s a very good oral history of this movie in The Guardian by Simon Bland that I’m using here.

Laci (00:16:19):

You love it when that happens.

Matt (00:16:20):

Love it so much. And as always, links to our sources are in the description. We are very diligent about where we get our research from. So this is PJ Hogan here. “The kernel of the story was my family and my sister’s stormy relationship with our dad. He was a local politician and, like Trump, obsessed with success. I’m one of seven and my sister and I are the oldest. To use my dad’s language, we were the most useless because we wanted to be artists and so were unemployable. He was very dismissive of us. I managed to get to film school, but my sister was stuck at home. My dad got her a job selling cosmetics, but everyone knew the woman employing her was his mistress. Suddenly my sister disappeared and it turned out she hadn’t been making money from the job at all. She’d just been robbing my dad and pretending she was doing well in the job.

Matt (00:17:06):

Six months later, she contacted me. She’d been living in Sydney. She said,” I suppose you’re mad at me. “I said,” No, you had to get out. “I though there was something very moving about her story and asked her permission to tell it. She said,” Okay, but maybe promise one thing that she’d be a heroine.

Laci (00:17:22):

“Absolutely. Was there any –

Matt (00:17:23):

End quote. Didn’t write it down.

Laci (00:17:26):

Is it Muriel?

Matt (00:17:27):

I don’t think it was

Laci (00:17:28):

Mariel.

Matt (00:17:29):

Mariel? Muriel or Muriel.

Laci (00:17:30):

Maybe Muriel.

Matt (00:17:31):

In a different interview with Variety, he sort of expands on this saying,” I have… “He’s talking about this time of his life and he says,” I have no career and I’ll probably never get to make a film in my life, but if I made a film, I want it to be about you. I think the story is incredible. So I asked her permission years before I ever figured out a way to tell the story. She gave me permission on two conditions. The first was that she would be the hero of the story, and the second was that I would not use her name.

Laci (00:17:53):

“Okay. There’s that.

Matt (00:17:55):

So PJ Hogan’s wife is also his producing partner. She was a successful director in Australia before his individual career took off. She directed Proof in 1991, major movie in Australia with a very young Russell Crowe and Hugo Weaving, Samara Weaving’s uncle. He told Variety –

Laci (00:18:13):

He looks like the person from Memento. He looks like the lead.

Matt (00:18:17):

Like Guy Pierce, who is Australian.

Laci (00:18:18):

Who can’t close his mouth. See? Close your mouth. Look at him.

Matt (00:18:22):

Close your mouth, Hugo.

Laci (00:18:22):

Close it.

Matt (00:18:23):

Got so much master embarrassment.

Laci (00:18:25):

He had so many teeth in there.

Matt (00:18:28):

No one was interested in anything that had my name on it because I had not made anything that anyone would want to see, but they were interested in Jocelyn because at least her name was associated with proof. But as far as getting Muriel’s wedding made, he said to the guardian, nobody wanted to make the film. They all said the same thing. No one wants to see a girl who’s not only unlikable and inarticulate, but plus-sized, a thief and a liar. I tried a draft where Muriel doesn’t steal the money, but it felt wrong. I decided to down Torpedoes, return to the original and find someone crazy enough to make it. I went to film school with Jane Campion and she got it made. We had sent the script to the company that financed her film, The Piano. They were going to turn us down, but I called Jane and said, It’d really help if you send a message to the head of the company telling them I might be able to make a decent film.

Matt (00:19:14):

I owe her my career.” So Jane Campion is the director of the piano, director of Power of the Dog, and great director in the cut.

Laci (00:19:24):

Sweetie?

Matt (00:19:25):

Yeah, Sweetie is the movie while I was watching this movie. Sweetie’s one of my favorite movies of all time.

Laci (00:19:31):

How have I not seen it then? It sounds exactly like something I’d like.

Matt (00:19:36):

It’s a little more depressing than… I don’t know. I was very up and down with Muriel’s wedding about how it was making me in the feels.

Laci (00:19:43):

You’ve been in a dark place.

Matt (00:19:45):

I’ve been in a dark place in this movie. A lot of it did get to me. That’s

Laci (00:19:48):

True.

Matt (00:19:49):

But Sweetie also is just ordinary Australians, people of different sizes that you don’t normally see in movies. People who are losers and weirdos and kind of dumb, kind of…

Laci (00:20:00):

And their hair never gets better.

Matt (00:20:01):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And it’s about their small lives and their small struggles.

Laci (00:20:07):

That’s what we’re all living.

Matt (00:20:09):

Jane Campion is from New Zealand, but she made Sweetie in Australia with an Australian cast. Most of her movies generally have been in New Zealand or Hollywood. But yeah, she’s the one who helped him get this financed. The company that financed the piano, they financed Mario’s wedding. They just pay for it to be produced. They still got to sell it to a distributor, so it hits the film festival circuit. Remember, this is the heyday of that movement of film where you could just make a movie and then you have all these big prominent film festivals and all these big distributors like Miramax are looking to pick them up.

Laci (00:20:43):

The festival still exists, just not as many distributors, right?

Matt (00:20:47):

Yeah. It’s sort of the feeding phrase. It’s kind of a bubble that popped.

Laci (00:20:50):

Yeah.

Matt (00:20:51):

But this is when you had so many young and hungry filmmakers putting their movies on credit cards, and then you get your Kevin Smith, you get your Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez and PJ Hogan. So it was bought by Harvey Weinstein and Miramax. Toni Collette, 23 years old when she made the film.

Laci (00:21:09):

Plus size. How big could she be? There’s no way she’s more than a six. Plus size. What the fuck are you talking about?

Matt (00:21:15):

I don’t know sizes.

Laci (00:21:17):

She looks my size and I’m a six or an eight. I guess I’m plus size. She’s normal size.

Matt (00:21:26):

Yes, of course. You’re just not accustomed to movies that are kind of showing ordinary looking people, but the movie is acknowledging she is bigger than all the people she hangs around with. But again, as soon as she gets a little bit of confidence, then she’s just a smoke show. But also she did gain a lot of weight for this role and then she developed bulimia to lose weight after the role. Oh, fuck. And again, I only think of her as playing tortured moms like in The Sixth Sense or Hereditary. I got this line from her Wikipedia page. This is what it says in her one paragraph summary. Primarily known for her portrayals of troubled and multifaceted women. And she is great at that, but I think she’s even better at stuff like this.

Laci (00:22:11):

So it’s like saying known for really good acting. A multifaceted woman, huh? Someone who you can believably portray as lots of different kinds of things?

Matt (00:22:21):

Yeah, that’s the troubled. We were talking about on our bonus episode with Austin of what is elevated horror? I think you could just point to her in hereditary as, “My mom died and I’m very troubled about it.” On Toni Collette, PJ Hogan said, “Many actors didn’t want to play Muriel, but Toni Collette never judged her. She got her on a deep level. One of the earliest scenes we shot was when Rhonda confronts Muriel in a wedding store while she’s trying on dresses. The emotional rawness of the scene still hits me. Toni was utterly vulnerable and emotionally naked. She took it to another level that shocked me. I could see Muriel’s desperation, loneliness, and self-hatred.” Toni Collette grew up in a working class family in the suburbs of Sydney, gained 40 pounds for this role. In 2002, she talked to The Guardian about her disdain for Hollywood’s fixation on skinny women.

Matt (00:23:11):

She said, “What they’re doing is helping create an image which is fairly unobtainable by the majority of the female population on this planet. I really don’t want to help push that. There are actors who are really fantastically talented at being natural on screen and appearing to be themselves, but I like the challenge of becoming somebody else. Not everyone is completely gorgeous and I want to play people who don’t normally have a voice or a presence on screen. I don’t consciously choose roles in which I can make myself look really bad. I try to play real people who inspire me through something in their journey.” Elsewhere in that article it says, “Colette decided she wanted to be an actor at 15, the oldest of three children in a family who weren’t the most communicative.” She says, “I’m pretty analytical about emotions and I think this job is good for working through that.

Matt (00:23:52):

I always had this stuff inside that I felt I needed to let out. I’ve always found acting satisfying because you’re working internally and presenting something which is understood through action, which hopefully is beautifully told within a story on film.”

Laci (00:24:04):

And she’s very perfect then to play someone who I do believe is a bit autism coded. I think the entire family is that. But I mean, there’s crossover with depression, there’s crossover with muted people, people who are not allowed to speak or they will get criticized. So you could say that this is just a family full of people of few words or just people who’ve been told shut up a lot.

Matt (00:24:29):

Yeah. And the one time in your life where you’re allowed to be the center of attention is when you get married. Oh, so that’s the only thing she can fixate on.

Laci (00:24:37):

Yeah. But also this is like America. I’d say the American South is what Australia usually reminds me of in that this actress, you’re meant to get married young and the most popular girl in school, you’re in her wedding and she’s getting married immediately. I mean, I know they’re not right out of college, but I mean school. But it’s not just, “Oh, someone will pay attention to me.” It’s, “This is what is expected of me. I’m worried I’ll never get this because I can’t even seem to have a relationship.” So the one thing a woman is supposed to figure out how to do, I’m very worried I will not get there. So by all means, I’ll get that prize, even if it’s not what it’s full of the meaning it’s supposed to have. I just need to achieve it so I can get past it.

Matt (00:25:30):

Yeah. Th time that you were married before you got married to me and you’re like, “Boy,

Laci (00:25:34):

I need to get that out of my

Matt (00:25:35):

System. I’m 24 years old. I’m running out of time. Better get married. All my cousins are getting married.”

Laci (00:25:41):

Well, I needed to have kids and I couldn’t have them out of wedlock, Matt. So I needed to not be the slut they already knew me as and be the married religious woman they expected.

Matt (00:25:53):

Even someone like Rhonda is sort of captured by this in the scene where Muriel says, “Do you ever feel like you’re nothing?” She’s like, “You’re not nothing. You’re getting married.” But it also could be she’s picking up… She knows that this is what Muriel needs to hear to validate her because we’ll get to that scene. Multiple profiles of Toni Collett describe her as a beach hippie and as new agey. Rachel Griffiths, who plays Rhonda, told The Guardian in the oral history, “I was in awe of Toni. She was unashamed to portray those ugly, nasty, weird feelings that young women feel they shouldn’t have. To put them on screen is such an insanely vulnerable and almost political thing. The truthfulness of awkward icky girl feelings didn’t fit the female narrative. We all get that now, but it was pretty radical when the film was released. It’s another reason why it hasn’t aged.” Singing ABBA –

Laci (00:26:47):

Yes. Yeah, let’s keep talking.

Matt (00:26:51):

“Singing ABBA with Toni and having that exquisite chemistry with another person when you know something beautiful is being communicated, the audience is with you and you’re harmonizing and feeding off each other. To this day, it’s in my top five days at the office.

Laci (00:27:04):

“Love.

Matt (00:27:04):

So yeah, this was a big breakout for both of those actresses. Colette a few years later would get the Oscar nomination for The Sixth Sense, be in all kinds of Hollywood movies and TV shows and on Broadway. And this was also big for Rachel Griffith. She would get an Oscar nomination a few years later for the movie Hillary and Jackie, and then she’d star on Six Feet Under. They later made this movie into a dang musical.

Laci (00:27:23):

Fuck yes, they did.

Matt (00:27:24):

In 2020, in an interview with Variety on the 25th anniversary of the American release of Muriel’s wedding, Colette said, “I think most people feel like an awkward outsider at some point in their lives. It’s a part of being human. Insecurity amongst other hurdles exist to be overcome. I am realizing audiences were generally comforted by Muriel. It still makes them feel less alone and okay about feeling vulnerable and imperfect in a society that demands so much of us.”

Laci (00:27:50):

And with a family that is bolstering that for people who don’t feel like they’re getting the relief they need from their house and home.

Matt (00:27:59):

And you can make mistakes and life goes on. I don’t know, that’s what I found really moving watching at this time is all of them kind of fucking up repeatedly.

Laci (00:28:12):

Yeah.

Matt (00:28:14):

So Hogan himself adapted it into a stage musical. He said in an interview in 2017, “I though Muriel would’ve loved to live now. In a lot of ways, she was the first reality TV star. She sold her personal life for money and fame. She got married for cash and publicity. How does that make her any different from Kim Kardashian? Muriel was the first Kim. That really intrigued me and I wanted to pursue that in the show.”

Laci (00:28:36):

I never think about that plot line very much, that she gets some fame whenever she marries that guy, that Olympian. I never think about it. And while it’s progressing and happening, I’m just like, “Oh yeah. Oh yeah, that’s a thing.”

Matt (00:28:51):

Yeah. And it must be just such a niche story too. A fucking swimmer got married. Wow.

Laci (00:28:58):

Yeah. Can’t bring home the gold.

Matt (00:29:00):

That’s one of my favorite scenes in the movies when the swimming coach is like… I don’t even remember the swimmery names, but like, “How do you think Taina Kangaroo felt when she won the gold?” And Muriel’s like, “Who?” But yeah, this is not that big a deal to most people is Olympic swimming. But yeah, I’m sure it was inspired by the success of Mama Mia, why they made this into a musical. But this was the first movie, I believe, to successfully use ABBA’s music. Hogan said it was a big fight. It was an uphill battle to get the rights to ABBA’s music because Binny and Bjorn, I guess those are ABBA people –

Laci (00:29:37):

I would think.

Matt (00:29:38):

Didn’t trust filmmakers. They’d allowed their music to be used for a film and they’d been lied to. I think it was Dancing Queen. If I remember the story, it was used as a backing for a hooker to strip for an old man while he masturbated. When they saw it, they were humiliated. After that, they thought filmmakers were liars and thought we just wanted to make fun of them. It’s hard to imagine this, but back in the early 90s, ABBA was considered NAF. They weren’t given their dues and they knew it.” In Australian and British slang, NAF means tacky, unfashionable, uncool, or of poor quality. So yeah, they made this into a stage musical in Australia. It toured Australia. In 2025, it moved its way to the United Kingdom. And that’s the history of Muriel’s wedding, everybody.

Laci (00:30:22):

Way to go, Laci. You picked a winner.

Matt (00:30:25):

You picked a winner. You bet on the right horse.

Laci (00:30:27):

I’m useful.

Matt (00:30:28):

Should we play the ABBA game? Yeah. One last thing. Let’s play the ABBA Spotify game. I have this later in my notes, but I fucking lost this game.

Laci (00:30:37):

All right.

Matt (00:30:38):

Pull up ABBA on Spotify.

Laci (00:30:41):

Am I going to get to play?

Matt (00:30:42):

Yeah. So I want you to give me the top five ABBA songs by number of streams and I will just… You don’t have to give me the actual number.

Laci (00:30:50):

I can’t go to five. I can only go to three. Which is Ferdinand, then Waterloo.

Matt (00:30:54):

Fernando.

Laci (00:30:54):

That’s what I said. Then Waterloo and then Dancing Queen.

Matt (00:30:58):

So you think Dancing Queen is the third most played song?

Laci (00:31:01):

No, I think it’s number one.

Matt (00:31:02):

Okay. Yeah. So Dancing Queen is number one with 2.2 billion streams. That’s fucking huge. And I too would’ve said… Well, wait. I would’ve said, okay, so obviously Dancing Queen’s their biggest. What? You got Mama Mia, you got Waterloo, you got Fernando. I think those are the only ones I could have named. Okay. Number two is something called Gimme, Gimme, Gimme.

Laci (00:31:20):

Oh, I know that song.

Matt (00:31:21):

What is that?

Laci (00:31:22):

That’s exactly the hook.

Matt (00:31:23):

Game, Game, Gamme. I got Gimme and Gamme. What is it?

Laci (00:31:27):

That’s it.

Matt (00:31:28):

Sing it.

Laci (00:31:28):

That is the hook. Gimme, gimme, gim. I don’t know the rest of the song, but I know that song.

Matt (00:31:33):

Okay. Never heard of that song. 1.3 billion streams. Number three, The Winner Takes All with one billion streams. What is that song?

Laci (00:31:41):

The winner takes it. It’s the song that they sing in leftovers.

Matt (00:31:45):

When?

Laci (00:31:46):

On karaoke, right? No, no, that’s home, going home. The winner takes… Yeah, a woman sings that in the leftovers in karaoke. It’s really moving.

Matt (00:31:56):

It doesn’t matter.

Laci (00:31:57):

It’s a ballad.

Matt (00:31:58):

Okay.

Laci (00:32:00):

That’s what you’re like right now.

Matt (00:32:02):

I’m like Robin Williams?

Laci (00:32:04):

Sure.

Matt (00:32:05):

Number four, Mama Mia with 888 million streams.

Laci (00:32:07):

I forgot they did Mama Mia.

Matt (00:32:08):

Number five, lay all your love on me with 874. So Fernando and Waterloo, not even in the top five.

Laci (00:32:15):

Right, because it’s meant to show a real fan. Dancing Queen was probably… They were probably like, “I guess we got to do this one.” But Waterloo’s the most fun. And the topic is hilarious. I just love that it’s about Napoleon. Napoleon losing. But he had been undefeated, so it is hard to face your Waterloo.

Matt (00:32:37):

No one ever wants to face their Waterloo. If you find yourself facing a Waterloo situation, sorry.

Laci (00:32:42):

Turn around. Be more like Hannibal and you turn around.

Matt (00:32:48):

You turn. That’s what he famously did. He got on his elephant that way.

Laci (00:32:53):

Come on, war elephant.

Matt (00:32:55):

Come on. Mrs. Jumbo. All right, this is a wedding. A bouquet is tossed and it lands with Muriel and she’s like, “Looks like I’m next.” And how does the crowd react to this?

Laci (00:33:16):

Instantly pissed. Not her. She just isn’t feeling the right vibes at this place. And someone remarks, “You didn’t even get a new dress.” And she’s like, “I did.”

Matt (00:33:31):

Yes, I did.

Laci (00:33:31):

In fact, she stole something because she knew she’d get accused of not buying something new. She’s like, “I did. What the fuck?”

Matt (00:33:39):

But like Patricia on Widow’s Bay, it’s like, I don’t know, everything you do is wrong.

Laci (00:33:46):

Right.

Matt (00:33:47):

And yeah, I’m on your side, Muriel, but like…

Laci (00:33:50):

Come on, get out of your own way.

Matt (00:33:52):

Can you try a little harder or just – Keep being so… I don’t know. Why are you dressed like that? Why does your makeup look like that?

Laci (00:33:58):

She’s trying.

Matt (00:34:00):

Yeah.

Laci (00:34:00):

That’s the look of someone trying before the internet, Matt. There’s not tutorials. All you got is magazine ads. You’re like, “I think I’m doing this.”

Matt (00:34:07):

So she catches the bouquet and the bridesmaids are mad at her and they’re like, “Muriel, you’re never going to get married. You don’t even have a boyfriend.” So they’re like, “Throw it again. You have to throw it again.” So she tosses it to Cheryl, but then Cheryl cries and she’s like, “My boyfriend broke up with me last night.”

Laci (00:34:23):

See what you did, Muriel.

Matt (00:34:25):

And they’re yelling at her. And Muriel is not a bridesmaid.

Laci (00:34:28):

That’s true. I forgot. I don’t want to think of… I guess because she’s at the dinner scene later.

Matt (00:34:33):

Yeah. I mean, I love this friend group that has a friend as part of the group who they all fucking hate and don’t want her to be there.

Laci (00:34:40):

I feel lots of mean girlfriend groups and just normal friend groups do have the scapegoat friend, the fun to punch on friend.

Matt (00:34:48):

It’s the we enjoy making fun of her thing. That’s why she’s there. That’s why she’s included.

Laci (00:34:53):

Until she becomes a liability.

Matt (00:34:54):

Yeah.

Laci (00:34:55):

Because they’re rageous.

Matt (00:34:58):

People think we are fun.

Laci (00:34:59):

They call us up because they know we’re just rageous.

Matt (00:35:02):

She’s like, “Yeah, I know. We’re crazy.”

Laci (00:35:06):

And more than once she just sticks her tongue out when she’s like, “Ooh, it’s such a human thing to do, but it is fucking nerdy.” And every time she responds by sticking her tongue out like a goofball, there’s always someone to be like,

Matt (00:35:19):

“Oh.” Oh God.

Laci (00:35:21):

Oh, no, no. More than like, “Oh God.” I’m like, “Ew.”

Matt (00:35:26):

Why is your tongue fucked up like that, Muriel?

Laci (00:35:29):

What’s it doing out your mouth?

Matt (00:35:30):

So they all go to comfort Cheryl, except one of the bridesmaids, let’s see, Nicole bakes eyes with the groom whose name is Chook.

Laci (00:35:39):

Well, you know she’s either going to be a bad person or a slutty person because she has short hair.

Matt (00:35:43):

Oh, really?

Laci (00:35:44):

Those are the rules.

Matt (00:35:45):

I did clock that.

Laci (00:35:46):

Yep. And then best friend is what? Bad and slutty. And then the person that gets her as a shoplifter, short hair.

Matt (00:35:55):

Yeah. It’s a rule. Okay. And so it was only the second time watching the movie that… And I was proud of myself when I watched it. I started watching the movie again and I’m like, “That’s the same woman who turns in her mom at the store.”

Laci (00:36:08):

Yeah.

Matt (00:36:10):

Oh, so it’s her actual job. Okay.

Laci (00:36:12):

Right.

Matt (00:36:12):

She’s not just some asshole.

Laci (00:36:13):

No, she says it’s her job.

Matt (00:36:15):

Yeah. She’s a store detective. I was like, “Is that somebody who for a hobby just goes and tries to find shoplifters?”

Laci (00:36:20):

The secret shopper.

Matt (00:36:21):

Okay. Yeah, she’s the secret shopper, but sees Muriel at the wedding reception and is like, “There’s that bitch who stole that stupid dress.” But Muriel goes into a bathroom and sees Chook and Nicole having sex. Chok. Chook.

Laci (00:36:34):

Chok.

Matt (00:36:35):

It’s C-H-O-O-K.

Laci (00:36:36):

Yeah, but it’s pronounced chalk.

Matt (00:36:38):

Chalk. And she sees Chalk having sex with Nicole and Muriel doesn’t do anything with that information.

Laci (00:36:45):

And this goes to her character, right? Because it’s not her that reveals it. She had every right to and so much incentive, but they are showing you who she is and at the heart of her, she’s not petty. She just wants love and connection. She wants friendship, she wants to fit in. Even when that’s being threatened in the most public, cruel way, she even then doesn’t want to also be cruel or petty.

Matt (00:37:11):

If she told, then they’d be mad at her about it or say she’s a liar.

Laci (00:37:16):

No, you’re wrong. But that’s not why she doesn’t do it. I know.

Matt (00:37:19):

I’m saying –

Laci (00:37:20):

It doesn’t matter what you’re saying because it goes against what I’m saying. She’s not thinking, “Oh, they’re not going to believe me.” She’s thinking, “I don’t want to hurt her or her.”

Matt (00:37:31):

No, I agree. I’m just saying that… And if she said it, they would also be mad at her because that’s just her life. The woman with the glasses turns merely into the police. They collect her from the wedding and then –

Laci (00:37:43):

Cops. Full ass cops.

Matt (00:37:45):

Take her to her home. And in this home we meet the family. Can you tell us a little bit about her family?

Laci (00:37:54):

Well, there’s a lot of them, four, but it seems like a lot for them all to be laying about. They’re all always watching TV. They’re indoor smoking, which is a point of something that only happens at this time, which I guess you’d say is the ’80s, early ’90s or late ’80s. You’re smoking indoors still, that is a class divide. That is classless. That means you’re trash. Where Mad Men days, ’50s, you smoke inside.

Matt (00:38:24):

Yeah, that’s normal.

Laci (00:38:25):

Well, and you probably have money. Anyway, but they are just laying around. All of them are sloppily dressed, bad hair. None of them treat their mom with any respect, but none of them are happy and they’re just watching TV. And everything is, “I need to defer to dad for this.” So you immediately see the bottleneck of power and the ruling from the chair mentality that I’ll yell, I’ll get on the phone. He has some local power and he uses it against his family as well.

Matt (00:39:01):

Yeah. He’s on the city council and people are in town. They want favors and stuff from him. They want to impress him. And he’s out in the real world. I’m like, “People respect me in here and my stupid family.” They’re such pathetic worms.

Laci (00:39:15):

And he truly thinks they are holding him back. They are not presentable. They are not demanding respect. He doesn’t see his role in that at all. He doesn’t spend any money on them. He doesn’t do anything to make them feel like they should look nice and stand by his side.

Matt (00:39:32):

Hasn’t given them any tools to be able to…

Laci (00:39:34):

At all, but always tells them how they did not help in this house, this stupid house, even though it looks like a lovely house to me.

Matt (00:39:43):

The sister, Joanie, sees Muriel get out of a police car and she gets this little grin on her face like, “Mariel’s done it.”

Laci (00:39:49):

Mariel’s done it again. Yeah. The sister that you kind of live vicariously through because whether she means to or not, she’s going to fuck up and usually in a fun way.

Matt (00:40:00):

You’re terrible Mariel. And so the cops come in, they tell the dad, “This young woman may have stolen a dress. Is this true, Mariel? They just steal a dress?” She’s like, “No, Sarah, I didn’t. I applied for it.”

Laci (00:40:14):

Hey, boy’s misunderstanding.

Matt (00:40:16):

And he’s like, “Well, she’ll go off and get the receipt from her room. And while you wait, why don’t I give you all some beers?” And he starts schmoozing with the cops and Muriel just goes into a room. The dad knows it’s a lie. She knows it’s a lie. She goes and sits in her room, puts in a cassette tape and listens to Abba and then looks out her window and sees the cops getting into the cop cars with big cases of beer.

Laci (00:40:36):

See, even stuff like that is setting them up for failure. Not only are they told they can do nothing, make anything happen for themselves at home, but when they make mistakes, it’s the worst of both worlds. When they make mistakes, the dad can just erase those mistakes when they’re outside of the home. So they’re not even getting any character building from that. The ticker is building up and up and up on what they owe their father, the insurmountable amount of favors he’s done for them and proof they’re useless because he doesn’t even get them the chance to right a wrong because it’s embarrassing to him. The wrong can’t even be on the record.

Matt (00:41:16):

The

Laci (00:41:16):

Books are cooked.

Matt (00:41:18):

A ledger that’s always going to be built up. You don’t have either the, like you said, the character building of maybe of having to go to jail or something like that or just having to navigate your own way out of trouble.

Laci (00:41:29):

Just school. School, anything. But because he cares so much about his appearance, it’s not even like he doesn’t want you to have detention or to not complete school. He doesn’t want to have a GED kid that is his child. So it’s the worst of both worlds. The favors are not for them, they are despite them and make the ledger uneven.

Matt (00:41:54):

And then they’re having this dinner at a very nice Chinese restaurant.

Laci (00:41:57):

I’m so hungry when I look at it.

Matt (00:41:59):

And the dad, Bill, he keeps calling the waiter Charlie Chan.

Laci (00:42:04):

I hope that’s his name.

Matt (00:42:05):

No, he’s just being racist. And he’s got these Japanese businessmen who he’s entertaining. I mean, he appears to know the difference between Chinese people and Japanese people. He’s like, “Hey, they might want to open a Japanese…” Or no, they want a Chinese restaurant at the casino that they’re building. And oh, this Chinese waiter right here, I did him a big favor. I’m a big muckety muck in town. I once ran for the state government, came very close to winning. And then he’s like, “Listen, makes Joanie stand up. She’s wearing the t-shirt that says Bill Heslip, you can’t stop progress.” Wow.

Laci (00:42:38):

Wow. All you’re good for is being a billboard, a human billboard.

Matt (00:42:43):

But in the end, it was good I didn’t win state government because I can do more for people of porpoise spit here on the grassroots level. Anyway, here’s my shitty children. Mariel’s on the dole. So is Perry.

Laci (00:42:54):

Well, there’s must be school age still.

Matt (00:42:57):

That’s what I was going to ask because later she talks about the kids and it seemed like they were all adults, but…

Laci (00:43:02):

But yeah, if they’re on the dole, then they’re already outside of the benefits of being under 18.

Matt (00:43:08):

But then even if they’re all over 18, but they’re still though of as the kids, that it’s still like, “Boy, you fucked up there too that you have these adults who are just totally incapable of looking after themselves.” So yeah, starts chewing them all out about being useless. Which

Laci (00:43:22):

Makes everyone uncomfortable. He doesn’t look like a good guy.

Matt (00:43:26):

No, I know. And he’s doing this all the time.

Laci (00:43:28):

Right. And he thinks he’s the only one that does know what people want and what’s right in polite society when he’s just as completely clueless about how to look like a nice person. He just does favors. He’s just crooked. That’s it.

Matt (00:43:45):

And politics today, and hey, Bill didn’t know about this, but politics today is nothing but politicians with failed children. That’s to be expected. Of course, you have large adult sons and daughters who can’t do anything.

Laci (00:43:57):

Well, we might have just tapped on exactly why that is. It’s this double dose of being told you’re not going to ever live up to this standard that I need to be able to run for office, and I have just enough power to wipe out your mistakes. “You’re a mistake, you owe me. You’re mistake, you owe me, you’re a mistake. “It just beats you the fuck down and you’re kind of reckless because eventually they do get caught.That’s how you get a fucking Don Jr is,” Well, my dad’s just erased all my mistakes till now. “You never think of the impeached version of your dad that’s a lame duck. He’s like,” Wait, I only know how to get out of things because you do it. Oh, fuck.

Matt (00:44:38):

“But people think Trump is a very bad dad. You compare him to other ghouls like Rudy Giuliani who has his large adult son and you’re like,” Oh, Rudy loves his big son. He loves him. “Fuck, he can’t do anything right, but you still can’t help but love him. So you have some sympathy and affection for Rudy Giuliani. And if Bill… I mean, later when Bill says,” They told me I didn’t win the state government because my family was enough to snuff, somebody probably did say that to him. Some fucking political consultant said that to him and he’s carried that with him and he’s a person who’s like, “I feel insecure about being fat, so I’m going to tell everybody I look so fat. I just look so fat all the time.” And it’s like –

Laci (00:45:19):

Right. I’m insecure about my family, so I’m going to say it first.

Matt (00:45:22):

And it’s like, “That’s not helping, man.”

Laci (00:45:24):

Useless, ugly, useless. Exactly. You’re just making everyone uncomfortable.

Matt (00:45:27):

Yeah, just act like you love them and it’ll humanize you. Anyway, he tells his daughter, “You only got your secretarial degree because I paid for it. All your other brothers and sisters useless too.” And then this woman, Deirdre, arrives like, Deirdre.

Laci (00:45:42):

I love their little… What a coincidence.

Matt (00:45:46):

Yep.

Laci (00:45:47):

And she’s nothing to look at. That’s what’s crazy. I know.

Matt (00:45:49):

I know.

Laci (00:45:50):

She just has confidence. She’s very put together. She has all the trappings of someone that’s good looking, but she’s not good looking. And her job is silly.

Matt (00:45:57):

Her job is made up.

Laci (00:45:58):

It’s not made up, but it’s not full of… I’m not saying that it’s not anything to be a beauty consultant or to sell cosmetics. It’s not full of purpose. It’s selling that you’re ugly. No, that you need things that you don’t.

Matt (00:46:14):

No, but it’s also a scam. She’s doing Mary Kay or whatever.

Laci (00:46:17):

Yeah. Yeah.

Matt (00:46:18):

It’s just an MLM. You’re just finding suckers to hire to buy stuff from you and then they’ll say sell it.

Laci (00:46:23):

I’ll take her.

Matt (00:46:24):

But they have this little thing going where she comes and joins and schmoozes the businessmen. Wow. She’s like the successful wife that he could never actually have. It’s like how I use my wife, Laci, to make friends for me whenever I’m uncomfortable in social situation. Laci, come and join us. Deirdre, and he has his wife. Betty, make some room for Deidre. It’s just Jesus Christ. But this is how it always works for them. And so Deidre offers Mariel a place. “You have a place on my MLM team. Why don’t you join me and sell cosmetics?”

Laci (00:47:00):

Now this is to me why probably when I was watching the movie the first time was the most surprising scene that she’d even be invited to a dinner. I mean, it seemed very obvious to me. Mariel’s out with the three friends that don’t seem like they have anything in common with her at all. And she’s at the wedding, but I mean, I don’t know. I think they tell you her place with them pretty quickly, so that there even needs to be a public breakup is just so you can see the level of cruelty and vapidness of these three friends or maybe kind of rounds out the… If you were confused about the dynamic, here it is. They were high school friendish and she just has… She doesn’t pick up on social cues enough to know when she’s invited herself to something or she can survive on so little affection because of having a dad that she has that she only needs a couple smiles from these girls to think that they’re friends and to just keep going to stuff.

Matt (00:47:58):

Yeah. So they have to. In order to get her to stop showing, they’re going to have to make it clear to her. And so she shows up at Breakers where they’re celebrating the recent nuptials, but the bride found out that her husband’s having an affair and they’re like, “With who?” And she’s like, because the one who fucked him at the wedding –

Laci (00:48:16):

Very interested in who you know.

Matt (00:48:18):

Nicole is there, but she’s like –

Laci (00:48:19):

Getting sheepish. And then here it’s the whole other person.

Matt (00:48:22):

A whole other person.

Laci (00:48:23):

She’s that asshole.

Matt (00:48:24):

Yeah. And so the bride who’s Tanya says, “They didn’t sleep together. She only sucks him off out of respect for me.” And so they’re like, “Hey, cheer up. Instead of going on your honeymoon, we’ll all go to Hibiscus Island together for a girl’s weekend.” And then they look at Muriel and they’re like, “Yeah, sorry, Muriel. We didn’t invite you because you don’t have a job. We were being thoughtful. Obviously you’d want to come, but you don’t have any fucking money, a loser.”You

Laci (00:48:50):

Don’t want to steal all your vacation things like you did the dress for the wedding.

Matt (00:48:54):

And she’s like, “Yes, I do. I just got a job last night as a beauty consultant.” And then they gave her the bad news. She’s well like, “Okay, now it’s time to tell. Actually,

Laci (00:49:02):

We’re righteous.

Matt (00:49:03):

Finish your orgasm first,” which is her drink.

Laci (00:49:07):

And she sucks it down.

Matt (00:49:08):

She slurps it. And then they’re like, “All right, listen, we’re cutting you loose. Yeah. People think we’re fun. That’s our image. We just don’t want you hanging around us anymore.” And she’s like, “I’m sorry about the dress.” And it’s not about the dress. You don’t dress right? You don’t act right. You listen to stupid music.

Laci (00:49:22):

We try to tell you about how to do your makeup and your hair and you just won’t do it.

Matt (00:49:26):

And she’s like, “I can change.”

Laci (00:49:27):

I’m trying.

Matt (00:49:28):

And what they say is, “Even if you change, you’ll still be you.” Muriel, you have to find friends at your own level.

Laci (00:49:37):

Like me and Chalk.

Matt (00:49:38):

Yeah. Me and Chalk. I found him on a blackboard and we’re perfect for each other. Then she’s crying and they’re like, “You’re making a scene in embarrassment.”

Laci (00:49:47):

Doing it again. You’re embarrassing us.

Matt (00:49:49):

And she goes, “I’m not nothing.”

Laci (00:49:51):

I mean, she lets it all loose. The very believable, overwhelmed crying. But you’re embarrassed too.

Matt (00:50:00):

Yeah, yeah. No, that’s why it’s a great performance because you’re totally on her side and still you’re like, “God damn it, Muriel. Fucking Muriel. Jesus Christ.

Laci (00:50:08):

You’re being me at the wrong time.”

Matt (00:50:11):

Now it’s the next day and her dad is now really into the idea of Muriel going and working for Deidre. So she tells his wife, “Give Muriel a check. Give her a blank check so she can purchase the makeup that she can then sell.” And so Muriel’s mom’s like, “Muriel, who do I make the check out to?” She’s like, “I’m just making it out to cash.” I mean, this mom, as she’s doing it, she’s just kind of disassociatively –

Laci (00:50:39):

Going through emotions.

Matt (00:50:39):

Yeah. Talking about her. And everyone in town talks about your father always going on late night drives with Deidre. They don’t know. He’s just showing her his housing developments and stuff.

Laci (00:50:47):

Well, that’s on her mind because she knows she’s now entangling herself even more to have even more interactions with this woman that makes her feel like complete shit. She tries to tell her how pretty she looks and she just talks right over Betty. And then when it suits Deidre, she will talk to Betty, but only to undermine her or to talk over her. And you just see it in her face like, “Well, here we go, another kid.” And this time it’s a kid who’s going to be indebted to Deidre and watch Muriel really like her. I think I’d really have to kill myself then.

Matt (00:51:22):

Yeah. And when she does die later in the movie, Deidre is now in the house kind of like running the house, has just come in and taken over the role.

Laci (00:51:31):

And they won’t even let her have a suicide. They don’t even give her the depth of saying she did take your life because all of it is just so that he can have a good image.

Matt (00:51:39):

It’d be embarrassing. It’d make you look bad. You must have been a bad husband.

Laci (00:51:44):

Yeah.

Matt (00:51:45):

So Muriel looks at the check. It’s just a blank check made out to cash. She’s like, “Mom, I’m going to do it. I’m going to be a success and you got to be proud of me.”

Laci (00:51:53):

Does that say 74? 1974?

Matt (00:51:56):

94. 12 / one / 94. It’s in the middle of hot Australian summer in December.

Laci (00:52:03):

Yeah.

Matt (00:52:03):

So we go over to Hibiscus Island.

Laci (00:52:06):

Why is it so funny to you? We all have places like this.

Matt (00:52:09):

Just the name Hibiscus Island, which is again, and I found out it’s a real place in Miami, just hibiscus. I don’t know. It’s the non-fun sounding place.

Laci (00:52:17):

That’s not true. It’s a beautiful flower. It’s the flower associated with fucking –

Matt (00:52:21):

Oh, that’s what hibiscus is. Okay. What did I think it was? I don’t know. Something gross. I

Laci (00:52:26):

Guess.

Matt (00:52:27):

The cool girls are there. They’re having fun, and then they are fucking outraged to see Muriel is there.

Laci (00:52:31):

I would be… Okay. This is the most insane thing that she does. This is terrifying, but she really doesn’t know what else to do. She’s just trying to imitate success and I guess ingratiate herself. Since the first thing they said to her was, “You can’t afford it, you don’t have a job, you embarrass us.” She’s thinking, “What’s embarrassing is that I don’t have a job, that I got caught for stealing, but if I can pretend that I have lots of money, that’s all they need from me.” And she still isn’t picking up like, “No, you’re doing this wrong.”

Matt (00:53:02):

Yeah. And again, they say, “And even if you changed, you’d still be you.”

Laci (00:53:05):

Threw a drink in her face.

Matt (00:53:07):

I know.

Laci (00:53:07):

It’s so fucked up.

Matt (00:53:10):

I mean, but yeah, you’d think, oh God, she’s going to fucking kill us. But no, it’s just they’re still in perpetual high school. “What are you doing here, you bitch? Stay away from us.

Laci (00:53:20):

It’s not sinister, but it can be perceived that way. It really is just, I didn’t know what else to do.”

Matt (00:53:28):

But then Muriel runs into another person she used to know from high school, Rhonda, Rachel Griffiths, and this will change her life.

Laci (00:53:35):

Don’t whisper at me, please.

Matt (00:53:37):

And Rhonda’s like, “So Muriel, oh my God. Hey.”

Laci (00:53:43):

So Rhonda is domineering and dominating in the other way, right?

Matt (00:53:48):

Yeah.

Laci (00:53:48):

She’s exactly who Muriel needs because she’s going to talk the most. She’s going to lead. She loves leading. She loves taking someone’s arm and tell them, “Come on, tell me this. Let’s do that, y’all Raja. Let’s go.” And just except for that all she sees is goodness in Muriel in a way that Muriel can’t even conceive of yet.

Matt (00:54:06):

Yeah. And it’s one of the heartbreaking things about the movie is in this section, if Muriel were just honest about who she was, Rhonda would completely accept her for who she is and tell her all the things she actually needs to hear. It’s like, You don’t have to fucking get married.

Laci (00:54:20):

Also, why the fuck is Rhonda here? Is she on vacation by herself? Why is she with no one else? Why is she immediately clinging to you, Muriel? Is she also here for a weird reason?

Matt (00:54:29):

Oh, good question. Why is she there?

Laci (00:54:31):

We don’t know. We never find out.

Matt (00:54:32):

I mean, she says she thinks –

Laci (00:54:33):

She’s just fucking guys.

Matt (00:54:34):

She’s like…

Laci (00:54:36):

I’m wicked too.

Matt (00:54:37):

Hey, are you married? Are you engaged? Because that’s the age. That’s what you ask. And she’s like, “I am to a man named George, George Glass.”

Laci (00:54:47):

I was going to make the George Glass joke. Tim Sims.

Matt (00:54:50):

I’m just like, “You’re getting married to Tim Stevens. You’re not wearing a –

Laci (00:54:53):

Sims. Tim Sims is even funnier because of rhymes.

Matt (00:54:56):

Are you sure?

Laci (00:54:57):

Dude, I’m going to check my mural fucking credentials.

Matt (00:55:01):

I’m getting married to Tim Sims. Oh yeah. I don’t see him anywhere and I don’t see a wedding ring. I know what’s going on.

Laci (00:55:06):

I’m onto you.

Matt (00:55:08):

You’re here to fuck some guys. I love to do that.

Laci (00:55:10):

You’re wicked, Muriel. That’s okay because I’m wicked too.

Matt (00:55:14):

One last fling. My whole life is a one last fling. And so Rhonda then goes on about those fucking bitches from high school. So I mean, was Rhonda… Do you think Rhonda was cool in high school or she’s – No, they’re

Laci (00:55:27):

Shocked.

Matt (00:55:28):

This is a classic, I’m cool now.

Laci (00:55:30):

This isn’t classic anything. This is, I got hot later in life and no guys were looking at me then, so I’m fucking all kinds of guys now. And so that’s a very normal thing to do once you’re… The weight of people knowing you since you were five is off of you and you are just this thing you are now. Yeah, you’re fucking some guys, but you’ve also probably lost weight. Your skin cleared up. Whatever it is, you turned out to be hot. So that’s why they’re shocked to see her, not because she’s from their school, but because she’s good looking now.

Matt (00:56:00):

Okay.

Laci (00:56:01):

You’ve changed.

Matt (00:56:02):

And she has the –

Laci (00:56:05):

Fucking choice.

Matt (00:56:06):

But she has the right attitude about it, which is like, it’ll be fun to show those assholes that I’m hot now and I’m not happy. Whereas for Muriel, this is like…

Laci (00:56:16):

Oh my God, we’re going to get in trouble. Don’t go up there. They’re mean.

Matt (00:56:19):

When later in the movie, she has these people as her bridesmaids. It’s like, “Yes, I am showing them.” There’s nothing more useless than getting even and showing those assholes from high school later in life. Except

Laci (00:56:36):

For in these really fun moments like this.

Matt (00:56:39):

Except for just to be fun about – When they really

Laci (00:56:40):

Present themselves. And when you’re standing up for someone who clearly doesn’t know she’s worth being stood up for or that she’s being completely mistreated and just what they say to fucking Rhonda is so dismissive. “It’s not like in high school. We can see you’ve changed as if it were ever anyone’s fucking choice to be awkward or to need some time to grow into their fucking body or maybe never get attractive, you fucking asshole. Then I didn’t change. I didn’t want to be beautiful. What?

Matt (00:57:10):

You thought of yourself as ugly in high school?

Laci (00:57:13):

Yes. So I got a nose job immediately when I got out, and that was a huge step forward for me. My butt grew in. I wasn’t curvy yet, and all of a sudden I was very curvy, but not until my boob job did I really feel like I looked good. And I didn’t even… I mean, it never quite clicked. It’s now 20 years later and I’m like, “Look at that figure.” And I was insecure.

Matt (00:57:39):

Oh God, I know.

Laci (00:57:40):

Because I also gained weight for the first time in my entire life when I went into college. I mean, I was only there for six weeks, that’s all it took though, because I was drinking the whole time. I remember I went for Thanksgiving to family that only ever saw me for Thanksgiving and Christmas and I was sitting and it’s the first time I ever had a roll, just a normal skin that went over my jeans because I was sitting and she poked it and went, “I’ve never seen you like that.” It woke me. I noticed my first cellulite after that. It shook me. I had no knowledge of how to dye it. I mean, I just stayed relatively thin until I had kids, but I realized, oh fuck, the only thing I ever was in high school was thin. That was all that got me through.

Laci (00:58:29):

That is the only way I survived. I had pimples, I had braces, I had short hair. I was greasy. I had no boobs, no curves, but I was thin and funny. And if not for those two things, I would’ve been fucked. So once you lose one of those things, you don’t realize you gained others or that… Fuck the people who care. Anyway, I just remember my identity kind of like for the first time I had body dysmorphia or something.

Matt (00:58:57):

For me, I spent my entire high school, I’m the fucking fattest person who ever lived and I’m the most –

Laci (00:59:04):

You’re just the kid from it size.

Matt (00:59:06):

Yeah. Oh, exactly. Yes. Smaller than that.

Laci (00:59:09):

Right.

Matt (00:59:10):

And then senior year, I did lose a little bit of weight and I think I just had a growth spurt or something. I didn’t try anything. But then just losing 10 pounds gave me a lot of confidence and suddenly I had a few more friends and came out of my shell a little bit. Then my freshman year of college, when I got the freshman 15, my brother, two years younger than me, one day said to me, “Matt, don’t let yourself go.”

Laci (00:59:36):

Oh, see? It’s those little comments from family and it happened to both of us in college. It was like…

Matt (00:59:43):

Yeah. And I probably went from 160 to 166 pounds.

Laci (00:59:47):

It’s like I went from not eating lunch and barely eating breakfast and only eating dinner my entire high school career to, “Well, now I just eat whatever the fuck I want. I have a car, so I eat fast food. No one’s fixing me dinner, so I eat fast food. The cafeteria at the fucking college and I’m drinking. So yeah, you gain weight. Don’t forget who you are, Matt.

Matt (01:00:10):

So I spent from age 19 to years into being married to you, always fixated on my weight. And every picture I look at myself from back then, I’m like, “You fucking idiot. You are tiny. You’re a fucking little baby. I’m going to beat you up for thinking you were fat back then.”

Laci (01:00:26):

Why are you so fucking mean to yourself even?

Matt (01:00:29):

I’m not really.

Laci (01:00:30):

Jesus Christ.

Matt (01:00:31):

No, and now I feel fine.

Laci (01:00:34):

Great.

Matt (01:00:34):

Yeah. But that’s just because of Ozempic.

Laci (01:00:39):

What a good role model you’re being.

Matt (01:00:41):

Charles Barkley, I am not a role model. But it sucks because back to the… If you have confidence, you’ll be attractive. Now, how do you have confidence? I don’t know. Be confident, you idiot.

Laci (01:00:54):

Well, it’s a chicken egg thing. Something’s got to make me feel like I feel different in a way that I hadn’t before.

Matt (01:01:02):

When I first met you, what I was attracted to was how funny and brash you were. And I didn’t know you in high school, but if you were a small boobied, pimply faced girl in high school, but had that sense of humor and brashness and loudness, I would’ve found you attractive. So if you had just leaned into that and been a little more confident, you would’ve been a cool hot girl in high school.

Laci (01:01:25):

I was scared of opening my mouth and saying something not funny. So I really waited till I knew, but I mostly always had something funny to say. But when you say something loud and it doesn’t hit, I would ruminate over that. Like, “Oh, Laci, your only thing is you’re funny. Oh, fuck shit. Better to just disappear.” And if anyone said anything about my nose that day, I wasn’t speaking at all probably. And that was almost every day.

Matt (01:01:50):

Saying something about your knees, fucking animals.

Laci (01:01:52):

Just “Hey big nose. Hey witch.”

Matt (01:01:54):

Yeah, I think kids wouldn’t say that today. Maybe.

Laci (01:01:58):

I don’t know. I think they still yell slurs at our kids. So yeah. I mean middle school, it’s a middle school, right? High school got better.

Matt (01:02:05):

So where are we? High school’s awful. Hibiscus Island.

Laci (01:02:08):

Well, Rhonda goes and tells off…

Matt (01:02:11):

The bitches.

Laci (01:02:12):

The bitches.

Matt (01:02:14):

And they invite her for a drink and you don’t want to be alone on Hibiscus Island. She’s like, “I’m not alone. I’m with Muriel.” They’re like, “What?”

Laci (01:02:24):

And then so this running theme that is happening through this entire trip is so corny, but it’s so relatable. There’s just these opportunities to do skits. It’s not even karaoke. It’s not like a talent contest. It’s just, do you want to dress up funny and get up here and lip sync? Then do it. So the hot girls –

Matt (01:02:42):

And people will gather and pay attention.

Laci (01:02:43):

So that is what you see first and then they find Muriel. And so it’s extra horrible because someone in a banana hat is yelling at you. And these guys, these three guys who look just like your conventional hot guys to these conventional hot girls are like, “Woo woo, whistle, whistle, blah, blah, blah.”

Matt (01:03:00):

In reaction to Rhonda and Muriel dressed as Abba.

Laci (01:03:04):

No. To the hot girls on stage. So all this has happened and then Muriel gets a drink at her face. Then Rhonda goes and puts them in their place. And now that’s all that had to happen for Muriel to have the confidence to get on the stage and do her thing. And now these guys, oh wait, the best part. Rhonda then does the thing Muriel didn’t want to do and says, “By the way, she fucked your husband.” So she punches her in the eye and they have to spend the rest of their holiday really fucking uncomfortable. So now they’re hot girls madly sitting at a table watching these two hotties sing fucking ABBA have the time of their life while their three conventional hot boys are whistling at these nerds instead.

Matt (01:03:48):

Yeah. The crowd’s into it. They’re up there singing Wadalu. But it’s also Muriel has just found someone who is just as dorky and into ABBA as she is. And they’re being silly and singing but being totally… It’s Romeo and Michelle. Actually, Romeo and Michelle is giving Muriel’s wedding. And in the audience, Tanya and Nicole jump on each other and get in a fist fight over chalk.

Laci (01:04:12):

You just had to make it about them right in the middle of their fucking song.

Matt (01:04:15):

But then it’s back home, back to reality and Muriel’s like, oh fuck.

Laci (01:04:18):

Well, I mean, except for that, Rhonda and her have this really sweet time outside after they sing.

Matt (01:04:27):

Oh right, right, right.

Laci (01:04:27):

And this is unfortunately, you think, oh, she’ll come clean now. She’ll say that she’s not with Tim Sims or whatever, but I don’t know. They just have a true connection and you’re like, “This is your way out, Muriel.”

Matt (01:04:39):

It’s like in the afterglow of their successful talent competition and they’re drinking, they’re staring up at the stars, they’re singing Fernando together. It’s very, very lovely. Muriel is becoming kind of more melancholy as she sings it, whereas Rhonda is still like, “I’ve got the joie de vivre. I’m drinking. I’m hot and I’m young and I’m going to go fuck.” And so Muriel says, “Do you ever think you’re nothing? Sometimes I think I’m nothing. I’m useless.” And Rhonda says, “You’re not nothing. You’re amazing. Remember how you were in school? You were so quiet. Now you’re a success and someone wants to marry you. You’ve made it.” And it really is maybe the most heartbreaking moment in the movie because Rhonda would totally accept her if she were not getting married.

Laci (01:05:26):

And unfortunately she points to the two things that are the lies. She’s not a success. She stole money and she’s not getting married.

Matt (01:05:33):

Yes. But those things don’t matter. Those things don’t actually matter to her and she just needed –

Laci (01:05:37):

But it’s a one-two

Matt (01:05:38):

Punch. Yeah.

Laci (01:05:38):

But it’s not enough to deter because Muriel knows her connection with Rhonda is real because in an amazing scene, the next scene is her returning home, right? And the dad’s really pissed and they’re all like, “He’s really mad, Mary.”

Matt (01:05:56):

We’ve seen the family go out to another casino and Deidre, what a coincidence. Come and join us at the table. And they’re reading a postcard from Muriel. “I’m here on Hibiscus Island. I’ve been making lots of cosmetic sales on the island. “You see that? Oh, and the dad. Okay. So Muriel’s not there. Now suddenly the dad’s bragging about Muriel is like,” You kids, you should look up to your sister. She’s going and really made something of herself. “She really impressed me. I told her that. You can’t type, but you really impressed me. So yeah, you other pieces of shit, you need to be more like your sister. But Deidre’s like,” Bill.

Laci (01:06:30):

“To Deidre’s credit, there’s one thing I will give credit to. She does do it aside and does not… She’s not a bad person in the sense that she’s not trying to kick these people when they’re down. She is the other woman.

Matt (01:06:47):

She sold $100 a merchant. “What are you talking about? She’s on a big expensive vacation. She must have sold so many cosmetics not putting too into… Oh, it didn’t occur to him. Oh, my daughter can steal from me.”

Laci (01:06:57):

It didn’t even occur to him that she’d have the guts or the brain to do it.

Matt (01:07:02):

Yeah. I think the brain’s mostly, “Oh my God, she realized you can write a number on that show.”

Laci (01:07:08):

She knows the word cash.

Matt (01:07:10):

So I mean, the super uncomfortable moment of Muriel having to go home to face the music.

Laci (01:07:16):

But it’s followed by this amazing moment of freedom. You just know she’s going to change your life or finally took this big… You think of her going to the Biscuits Island and stealing the money as her big act of defiance. It’s not. It’s her most desperate act of compliance and complacency and need to fit in. She’s stealing this money to show these girls, “I’m just like you. Please accept me now. Please let me be your friend. I’m on holiday with you. If this all goes to my plan, we’ll all come home. I’ll be your friend again.” That’s her only intention. It’s not until she meets Rhonda and then realizes I can just run away from my family and listen to an ABA song. She gets back into the cab and you don’t catch up with her again until she’s had some time to be away.

Matt (01:08:05):

Well, she goes into the house, her sister’s like, “You’re terrible Muriel. Oh my God.” And the mom’s like, “Muriel, they’re saying that you stole the money, but you wouldn’t have ever done that. You didn’t do anything bad with those blank checks I gave you. All our money’s gone from the bank.” $5,000. And Muriel’s like, “No, of course not. Of course I didn’t do that.” And then she gets in the cab and leaves. And so we kind of flash forward and we get the movie’s title card of Muriel’s wedding with a bouquet flying in the air. It does it again with Sydney, City of Brides.

Laci (01:08:39):

Well, you just know everything’s going to be okay, even though it’s not quite okay yet, because her hair looks so good. And she’s at a movie store. The kind of people who would love this movie want to work at a video store and it’s the fucking clerk’s dream. You work across the street from your best fucking friend.

Matt (01:08:57):

Truly.

Laci (01:08:57):

And you can look at each other and call each other. That is amazing.

Matt (01:09:00):

There is nothing better. There’s no better life.

Laci (01:09:03):

You’re affording a flat on a dry cleaner salary. Yes. You’re at a cafe.

Matt (01:09:10):

I think we’ve done what’s the best video store from a movie? It might be this. This is the best video store I’ve ever seen in a movie. This is the coolest video store. But here’s what I like. Oh, well, first things first, I asked the Google AI, is Sydney really called the city of brides? No, it’s not.

Laci (01:09:25):

Oh, I always though it was.

Matt (01:09:28):

Huh? Okay.

Laci (01:09:29):

What is it called?

Matt (01:09:31):

The Emerald City. It’s just not that.

Laci (01:09:32):

Look it up.

Matt (01:09:33):

It’s got a lot of different stuff, but it’s not –

Laci (01:09:34):

It’s got to be the city of something.

Matt (01:09:36):

Yes, I know, but it’s not like Sydney is well known as that’s where the brides are. Because think, what would that mean?

Laci (01:09:43):

Well, what a ballsy thing to change about such a well known… If there’s anything people know about Australia, it’s Sydney. So it’s just funny for an Australian director to be like, “I’m just going to call this thing a whole other thing.” Come at me, bro.

Matt (01:09:55):

Let’s steal a bit from the doughboys. Is Sydney more famous than Kangaroo?

Laci (01:10:00):

Fuck.

Matt (01:10:02):

Is Kangaroo more famous than Koala?

Laci (01:10:06):

Kangaroo.

Matt (01:10:07):

Is Koala more famous than Kangaroo No, it’s Karoo. No, I know. We’re just trying to get a hierarchy.

Laci (01:10:11):

Okay. Dingo.

Matt (01:10:13):

Okay. Is Koala more famous than Sydney?

Laci (01:10:16):

Sydney.

Matt (01:10:17):

No. Koala’s more famous than Sydney.

Laci (01:10:19):

No. I don’t think people can pull koala out of their head like they can, Sydney, because of the opera house.

Matt (01:10:25):

I don’t think you’re right about this. Thank God.

Laci (01:10:27):

I’m the average person.

Matt (01:10:28):

Is Sydney more famous than Melbourne?

Laci (01:10:30):

Of course.

Matt (01:10:31):

Is Sydney more famous than Adelaide? All right. So it’s the city of brides. All right. Here’s something I just absolutely love about this movie, about PJ Hogan’s script, is there’s a billion stories of like, “I moved away. I changed my life. I became a new person.” That’s not really what happens.

Laci (01:10:50):

That’s not what happens.

Matt (01:10:51):

She’s still very connected to back home. It’s still very much a part of her. She’s still talking to the people.

Laci (01:10:55):

She’s handled it, right? And she’s run away from something.

Matt (01:10:58):

Yes.

Laci (01:10:58):

This is her first chance to figure out what is possible.

Matt (01:11:02):

She hasn’t solved anything.

Laci (01:11:03):

What she is capable of. She didn’t know she could do things, get jobs that weren’t handed to her and then go to them and then keep the job. Go out for the first time. She’s doing all these freeing things, but underneath it, she still hasn’t dealt with the childhood she had and the mistake that she needs to go fix.

Matt (01:11:25):

Right. But the act of trying to do that made her learn some sort of smaller things about herself.

Laci (01:11:30):

Huge things, Matt.

Matt (01:11:32):

Smaller than, “I can go literally change my identity and be a totally different person.”

Laci (01:11:36):

Oh, right. That’s all very silly. And I think all those stories are about people actually never changing who they are like Mad Men. His story isn’t that he changed his life, it’s that he never stopped being that man.

Matt (01:11:48):

And she’s like, again, you could not be living a cooler life than she’s living where she works at the video store. Her best friend works across the street. They talk on the phone. They date hot guys. Her friend goes and gets DP by American Sailors while she fucks the guy on the beanbag chair. It’s awesome, but she’s still like, “Oh, but the bride’s on TV. I like to watch the weddings.” They have the video store TVs that she controls with the multiple TVs all hooked up to one source. She watch the more wedding over. And she’s just rewinding to watch the wedding dress parts.

Laci (01:12:18):

The wedding dress part. The thing that the woman says about… It’s not about the wedding dress. It’s about what the announcer says when she sees it. Oh my God. That’s what she wants.

Matt (01:12:28):

So it’s just –

Laci (01:12:31):

That’s so in her. Yeah.

Matt (01:12:32):

To know that you can… Obviously wherever you go there you are. It didn’t mean she actually transformed into a different person. She’s just as fixated on this stupid thing of being a beauty bride.

Laci (01:12:44):

Well, and if anything, it gave her more resources, more access to this thing she thinks she needs. She’s going to meet a guy now because she’s got a good haircut and she’s away from her family. She’s feeling good about herself. She goes nightclubbing all the time. Surely I’ll meet a guy. There are so many bridal shops. I go to all of them.

Matt (01:13:00):

Yeah.

Laci (01:13:01):

That’s what I mean. I mean, her access to these things has expanded, so yeah, it’s not going to turn it off. She still has it as a marker in her mind for the ultimate accomplishment.

Matt (01:13:11):

But what do you know? A guy in the video store does ask her on a date, just comes out, “Hey, would you like to go on a date with me?” And she laughs. She’s giddy and finds it… She’s tickled and has to call Rhonda and be like, “You see this guy? Should I date him?” She’s like, “Yeah, you should. Okay.” And then they go and they have a lunch to talk about everything. And Muriel says, “I’m changing my name. I’m changing my name to Mariel, from Muriel to Mariel.”

Laci (01:13:35):

Which underscores what you were saying. She’s only a little different.

Matt (01:13:37):

Yes. And it’s just Mary. I want to be married.

Laci (01:13:41):

Yeah. And she’s lying to herself.

Matt (01:13:43):

And still lying to Rhonda because Rhonda’s like, “Are you in trouble with the law?” She’s like, “Well, you know my ex-husband, Tim Sims, my ex-fiance, Tim Sims, he’s a policeman. And he said, when I told him I left him, he said if he ever found me with another man, he’d kill that man, then kill me, then kill himself.” And Rhonda’s like, “He must really love you.”

Laci (01:14:03):

That’s exactly the kind of things we were taught.

Matt (01:14:06):

That’s love. That’s romance. That’s what Eminem was singing about.

Laci (01:14:09):

That’s what the boombox over your head’s about. Come to my house uninvited. Cry in my driveway.

Matt (01:14:16):

So they go out to a dance club and Rhonda is just dancing with two sexy sailors, American sailors in sailor costumes, and Muriel and her date are just watching. He’s not comfortable.

Laci (01:14:27):

They’re in their uniforms.

Matt (01:14:28):

They’re in village people costumes. And he’s not comfortable here. And he’s like, “Hey, can we maybe go somewhere else?” She’s like, Rhonda wants us to be here. Or no, Rhonda wants to be here, so I just do it Rhonda.

Laci (01:14:39):

She needs to be domineered.

Matt (01:14:39):

Right.

Laci (01:14:40):

She needs her father, but just in a nice, softer way.

Matt (01:14:44):

Right.

Laci (01:14:44):

But she’s still lying to her just like she would her dad.

Matt (01:14:46):

Yeah. And then Rhonda comes over and she’s like, “We’re going.”

Laci (01:14:49):

I guess we’re going.

Matt (01:14:50):

Yep.

Laci (01:14:50):

Yep.

Matt (01:14:51):

Those sailors are America. So she’s going to literally have a threesome with them. And so Muriel –

Laci (01:14:56):

One that gives her cancer.

Matt (01:14:58):

Yeah.

Laci (01:14:58):

So you know is good. I know they even asked the question, but I always disassociate it’s because she had sex.

Matt (01:15:05):

It’s not because she had sex, it’s because she fell into the wall. That gives you cancer. What was in that wall? So they leave and then Muriel and her date, Bryce is her date, are still in the club and she’s like, “Do you want to dance?” And he’s like, “I’m a terrible dancer.” She’s like, “I don’t care.” So they dance and then they go to the home. It’s like sideways. It’s like when Jack and Stephanie are fucking in the other room and Miles and… What is Virginia Madsen’s character’s name?

Laci (01:15:35):

I knew till you asked me.

Matt (01:15:37):

They hear him having sex and they’re like, “So want to talk about why we like wine?” Yeah. Okay. So they are –

Laci (01:15:42):

These screenshots you grabbed are insane. Look at her face. I mean, she is uncontrollably giggling in a way that you’re like, “I didn’t even know this was how you were.” This is wild.

Matt (01:15:56):

She’s presumably never had sex.

Laci (01:15:58):

Right. And all of it, she just doesn’t even know how to act.

Matt (01:16:05):

Okay. So what happens is she’s sitting there watching the TV with Bryce. Bryce is like, “I want to try to have fuck with her.” And he’s being a gentleman about it. “Why don’t we drink our tea and eat our bickies?” And they turn on the TV and it’s Muriel’s dad on the TV. “Muriel, if you’re out there, please. We want to know that you’re alive and we love you.” And she’s like, “Oh shit.” And she changes it to MTV or whatever where there’s just naked people fucking each other. So he makes a move on her and he starts –

Laci (01:16:33):

It’s trailing MTV.

Matt (01:16:34):

To take off her clothes, which he stops. He’s like, “I have to tell you something. I’m a parking inspector.” She’s like, “That’s okay.” Again, she’s very sexy here because she’s having a great time. She’s giggling too much, but it’s like she’s just so excited to be having sex.That’s fun.

Laci (01:16:50):

Her boobs look great.

Matt (01:16:51):

And he accidentally, he’s trying to unzip her side pants. You know how you’ll get side zippers, but unsteady unzips the beanbag chair or whatever beneath her and these balls spill out and she’s laughing. Then the naked sailors come out with huge erections.

Laci (01:17:05):

No, she cannot stop staring. I mean, but they think he’s harassing her. So the only thing I get aggravated with Muriel in this scene is like, “Please tell them not to be mean to him.”

Matt (01:17:17):

But she can’t. She’s too busy giggling.

Laci (01:17:20):

Everything’s too raging.

Matt (01:17:22):

And then freaking Rhonda comes out, a damn smoke show, and she’s like, “What’s going on, hand?” I don’t know, but we’re all about to penetrate each other. And then Rhonda falls back into the wall and then collapses to the ground and she’s like, “Mariel.”

Laci (01:17:37):

I love how much and how quickly Rhonda respects the name change.

Matt (01:17:42):

Yes.

Laci (01:17:43):

She’s the only one that doesn’ struggle with it.

Matt (01:17:45):

And as silly as… No, I’m Mariel.

Laci (01:17:48):

I know. She so earnestly trusts Mariel.

Matt (01:17:53):

“Mariel, I can’t feel my legs. “And now it becomes a very special moment in the movie where we go to the hospital.

Laci (01:17:59):

Why are you saying it like that?

Matt (01:18:01):

And she’s getting some tests. So Mariel is in the waiting room and decides she’s going to make her phone call to Porpa Spit. “Operator, I want to reach Porpa Spit place.” And her sister answers the phone like, “Mariel, you’re going to get in sandwich trouble.” And then the mom gets on the phone and the mom’s like, “Mariel, you didn’t take our money, did you? I made a mistake with the check. I wrote the wrong numbers.” And she says, “No, mom, I did take the money.” And the mom’s just like, “Yeah, maybe you did.” The mom knows everything. Of

Laci (01:18:32):

Course.

Matt (01:18:32):

She always knows everything. It’s just, yeah, can I just alter reality with my words? No, I can’t.

Laci (01:18:38):

That and which thing gets me in less trouble with my horrible husband and maybe a part of me is trying to protect my kid too. I know what he’s going to do to her, so let me just say it’s me. It’s the small things that she can do.

Matt (01:18:53):

So she tells her mom, “I’m in Sydney.” Your dad’s in Sydney. He has the inquiry. They’re saying he took bribes, but he only had to do that because you took all our money, which is probably not true.

Laci (01:19:05):

Well, because the real thing is I think they’re only looking into his money because his money was stolen, so they had to check into it and then found odd

Matt (01:19:14):

Things.

Laci (01:19:15):

So it is Mariel’s fault in a way. But it’s his because he shouldn’t have taken bribes.

Matt (01:19:21):

Don’t take bribes, everybody.

Laci (01:19:23):

You on the doll.

Matt (01:19:26):

And he’s in Sydney too for the inquiry. He’d love to see you.

Laci (01:19:29):

I’m sure.

Matt (01:19:30):

But then the doctors come and she goes to get the news with Rhonda and the doctor… I mean, this is a good little scene where the doctor’s like, “Okay, so you have a tumor in your spine. We’re going to need to remove it.” Just like, “Well, how did that happen? How did I get that?” And he’s like, “Was it having too much sex?” And it’s like, “No, cancer isn’t caused by having too much sex.” Or, “We don’t know what causes cancer.” And then she’s like, wait, cancer.

Laci (01:19:55):

Right, right.

Matt (01:19:56):

And it’s just that detail of like, yeah, doctors will just tell you stuff and assume you know that if we say you have a tumor, that means cancer.

Laci (01:20:02):

Brain tumor doesn’t make me think I have brain cancer.

Matt (01:20:06):

Does it?

Laci (01:20:07):

Well, no, I have a brain tumor. I’m just saying they’re not synonymous to me. I’m sure it should be, but…

Matt (01:20:13):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And so he says, no –

Laci (01:20:16):

It’s not a cancer, is not what I ever said before.

Matt (01:20:19):

So we’re going to need to remove it and there might be some minor spinal damage after that.

Laci (01:20:24):

You might have the hardest time walking ever.

Matt (01:20:28):

Later Muriel is walking by a bridal shop on the street, so she goes in to look and people ask her like, “Oh, so you’re getting married?” “Yeah, I’m getting married, but my mom has cancer in her spine. She’s going to be so sad to miss my wedding. “She’s doing Marie from Breaking Bad.

Laci (01:20:46):

Yes, yes. She has, what is it? Hysteronic… Fuck. The personality disorder that has the word history in it. Histrionics. It’s someone who’s constantly redoing history. They’re prone to elaborate lies and they get some sort of validation from whatever sympathy or reaction they get to these things.

Matt (01:21:10):

But cruelly incorporating these real details from her life, like her best friend having cancer.

Laci (01:21:15):

She really is processing it. Yeah. It’s just…

Matt (01:21:18):

She’s like,” Well, oh my God, you look so beautiful in this dress. Your mom, we normally never do this, but we’re going to take all these pictures of you and give you a wedding album so you can show it to your mom. “So she takes the wedding album home like she actually had a wedding and hides it under her bed. But Muriel’s being very supportive of Rhonda, helping her go through physical therapy.

Laci (01:21:36):

But in the way that Rhonda was very supportive and helpful to Muriel in the beginning, she’s saying accidentally the exact wrong things,” But you’re going to walk. “She keeps saying it. It’s like Rhonda’s not worried that it’s going to be hard to walk. She’s worried she’s never going to walk again and that people won’t want to be her friend and she’ll be a burden and she’ll go back to her mom. She doesn’t want to hear you keep saying you’re going to walk. She wants you to say,” I’m your friend even if you can’t ever walk again. “And Rhonda might even know she wants to hear that, but it’s these little miscommunications that keep sending them on slightly wrong paths to really align just yet. Neither of them are being fully honest with each other.

Matt (01:22:20):

And the physical therapist is like,” Okay. Yeah, you’re doing so great. Wow, you’ve made such progress and you feel it in Griffith’s performance. “That’s not helping me, you saying that –

Laci (01:22:29):

No, that is true though.

Matt (01:22:31):

Yes, I know, but –

Laci (01:22:32):

And with Hank, I mean, there again with Marie. It’s funny. Did you even make that connection when you were saying…

Matt (01:22:37):

No, no, I didn’t. But I’ve been doing physical therapy and it’s not like I’m anything like this, but sometimes you want to hear encouragement. Sometimes you want to hear,” Hey man, if this doesn’t work, that’ll be okay too. We’ll still be okay.

Laci (01:22:52):

Just keep pushing is all they know to say because it’s like, “Well, this is my job. My job is to make you walk out of here different.”

Matt (01:22:57):

Right.

Laci (01:22:58):

When it’s like, I’d rather your job be to tell me what my body is doing and how it measures up to other people’s bodies in the same situation. And is there a point to what I’m doing other than that you can get a slight payment from my insurance company every time I come?

Matt (01:23:11):

But the plan is she will walk again.

Laci (01:23:14):

Is it free medical care in Australia?

Matt (01:23:19):

Australia’s a right wing hellhole, I know. I always assumed they had universal healthcare. I’m going to go with yes. Let’s just assume yes. The plan is still she’s going to walk, but it was just, “God, I don’t want to move back to Porpospit. I don’t want to live with my mom.” And so Rhonda promises, “That’ll never happen. I will always be here with you in Sydney helping you get past this.”

Laci (01:23:41):

Muriel. Then Rhonda discovers the book of… And again, Muriel doing something not as deranged as you think comes off as the most deranged person when you find a wedding album full of her dressed as a bride from all kinds of places, every store. And Muriel, I don’t even know what to call her, just made such a big promise to her that she doesn’t want to think her friend’s a liar, but here’s evidence that my friend’s a liar. She just has it wrong. “You are marrying Tim Sims. You said it was over, but clearly, because why would you have this? But then when the truth is revealed, it’s like,” I don’t know if that’s better. You’re still a fucking liar and you might be crazy now.

Matt (01:24:27):

“She confronts her in the… She’s in another bridal store trying on stuff, and this time she’s like,” Muriel, you look beautiful enough to pull your sister out of her coma. “And then Rhonda comes in and confronts her about it, and Muriel breaks down like,” There never was a Tim Sims. I was never getting married. I just want to be married because that way that’ll prove I’m a different person. That’ll prove that I’m worthwhile. I’m not going back to being Muriel Heslup, fat, stupid and useless. When’s it going to be my turn? “But there’s never any danger of Rhonda abandoning her over this.

Laci (01:25:06):

Well, Rhonda’s in a state where she couldn’t. And I don’t think that she would if she could, but it’s got to shake you to your very core that all the main things I know about you, except for how you treat me and that you’re a good person.

Matt (01:25:25):

And the rest of the time I know you, I’m always going to be like,” Muriel’s not here. Probably a fucking bridal store pretending to be a bride. God. But Muriel has a lunch with her dad, her dad and all of his solicitors and barristers. And he immediately starts, “There’s my stupid daughter. You’re coming back to pull up a spit with me, you pig, and you’ll work and you’ll pay me the money back.” And then what a coincidence Deirdre joins in. “Oh, Deirdre, you’re in Sydney. That’s crazy. “And she sits down and Muriel asks a direct question. They don’t do that in this family. Just,” Dad, are you leaving mom for Deidre? “And her dad does not answer. Deidre does. Yes. And she says,” What about mom? “And her dad says,” She’ll have you when you go back to Porpospit. “And so after this, Muriel goes back to the apartment she has with Rhonda, and Rhonda’s sitting there saying her tumor has come back.

Matt (01:26:13):

She will need another operation and they’re going to cut her spinal cord, which means she’s never going to walk again. And my mom wants me to come back to Porpus Spit, but I told her,” I’m staying here with you. “And Muriel definitely gives the impression like,” Yeah, yeah. I said what I said. I meant what I meant. I’m going to be here with you. “But she then goes looking through these ads, personal ads, and looking for an Australian woman to marry an Olympian, blow off a cash. So it’s this Olympic swimmer, and he’s South African. He’s a white South African. He didn’t qualify for the South African team. This is the funniest moment in the movie. The coach, he has his swimming coach and the coach is like,” Mariel, I’m sure you’ve seen the news. Just as a South African… “I can’t do a South African accident.

Matt (01:26:58):

“Just as the South African government is starting to do right by the Blacks, the police opened fire on a Black soccer club, and that is not good news for David here.” And Muriel goes, “Are you Black?” And they’re like, “What?” She’s like, “I don’t know why I said that.” So reading between the lines here, it’s like, “Apartheid is over. We can’t be having white people on the Olympic swimming team, not after we shot that Black soccer team. So damn David here needs a different country to find home.” And this does happen all the time of people going and just getting nationalized by other countries to be on their teams. I don’t think it’s usually this blatant if you go marry somebody. Usually it’s like, “Well, my grandfather was born in Sierra Leone, so I can play on their team even though I’ve lived in the United States my whole life, but I didn’t make the US basketball team.” So yeah, we’ll pay you $10,000.

Matt (01:27:48):

You have to tell everybody you’re in love with David and you have to live with him for four months after the wedding. Can you do that, Muriel? Can you lie? She’s like, “I’ll give it a shot.”

Laci (01:27:58):

Well, and it’s funny because now she’s by a conventionally attractive person. Again, a person who hasn’t had to feel awkward and an outcast. He’s an Olympic level swimmer. He’s perfect in his abilities and looks. I mean, it’s not my type, and now all of a sudden he’s with a very vulnerable, normal person, and she looks so abnormal when she’s around him, even though it’s like… But when she’s with Rhonda, all of this makes sense. She makes complete sense. But when you’re with somebody who has had no friction in their life and they just look at everything you do as something insane, it makes the person look insane. And we know better.

Matt (01:28:43):

She’s giddy. I mean, she’s just too into it and he’s like, “What about that bond?”

Laci (01:28:48):

But if she were really into something Rhonda were talking about, it would be adorable.

Matt (01:28:51):

Right, right,

Laci (01:28:51):

Right. It’s just him. It’s his friction. It’s his not wanting to understand or relate, assimilate anything he wants to alienate.

Matt (01:29:02):

And you are asking for an insane thing.

Laci (01:29:04):

Right.

Matt (01:29:05):

This is an insane thing to be doing. We advertised this in the newspaper. Now we’re having this little conversation by the pool and we’re going to pay you to be his fake wife. Can you do that for us, please? Yeah, of course. What’s the normal way to act in this situation? There is no normal way.

Laci (01:29:18):

But no, now he’s holier than now.

Matt (01:29:21):

But they’re going to get married and now a new title comes on screen, Mariel’s wedding. And Ave Maria plays throughout a lot of the rest of the movie, and Mariel is getting married, and she’s a fucking celebrity now. Everyone is so happy to be in her big wedding in Sydney. The bitches from earlier in the movie are now her bridesmaids.

Laci (01:29:41):

They reached out and insisted, which is –

Matt (01:29:43):

We don’t know that yet.

Laci (01:29:44):

I know that, but I’m saying that because you said earlier implied that she had them on her own accord come back.

Matt (01:29:52):

No, I meant that she –

Laci (01:29:52):

It doesn’t matter. You messed up.

Matt (01:29:54):

I’ll explain it in a minute.

Laci (01:29:55):

And you can make right.

Matt (01:29:56):

I will deal with it.

Laci (01:29:57):

Thank you. And you don’t know who’s paid for it at this point. I mean, it’s just kind of like shock and all like, oh my God, what a fucking elaborate, expensive thing. And the dad’s complaining about fucking getting a plane, but he had to put the mom on the bus and it’s her fault. And it’s like, I think you could have prioritized her ticket over Deidra’s. I mean, though I guess they’re all in Sydney, this is happening in short order. Deidre could already be there, but everything’s someone’s fault.

Matt (01:30:26):

He wants Deidre to be there as his wife. So you could even say, yeah, he made sure to time it so that his wife wouldn’t get there in time. And it’s just the mom, it’s the saddest. It kind of becomes her movie for a little bit at this point. And Rhonda is there being pushed in her wheelchair by her mom, but Rhonda was invited to be a bridesmaid, chose not to be. And then Rhonda sees the bridesmaids, the cool girls, and they’re like, “Rhonda, what happened to you?” And she’s like, “Yeah, I got fucking cancer of the spine.” And they’re like, “Oh, you used to be so full of life.” And she’s like, “Well, I’m not dead.” God,

Laci (01:31:01):

Yeah.

Matt (01:31:02):

Muriel is fucking, she’s looking gorge and she is just beaming and she’s a fucking celebrity. She’s

Laci (01:31:09):

A definition of beaming and it’s freaking out the fucking swimmer.

Matt (01:31:13):

And she walks down the aisle to an ABBA song that I don’t know.

Laci (01:31:16):

Which is the only thing that perks up Rhonda and makes her feel like, okay, that is the person I know. Under it all, this is still a very her thing to do.

Matt (01:31:26):

But this, I’m not an ABBA guy. I do, I do, I do. What is this song?

Laci (01:31:31):

You named it.

Matt (01:31:32):

It’s I do, I do, I do.

Laci (01:31:33):

I mean, it’s I do.

Matt (01:31:34):

All right.

Laci (01:31:35):

I’m not an ABBA girl.

Matt (01:31:37):

Well, that’s why we’re married. They get up to the stage, to the lectern. What’s it called? The pulpit. I don’t know. The priest is going to ask them the questions. Are you married now? And he’s very relaxed. He’s like,

Laci (01:31:52):

This is going to bother me.

Matt (01:31:53):

The altar.

Laci (01:31:54):

Thank God.

Matt (01:31:55):

And they get up to the stage and the guy is like, and do you accept this woman, Muriel? Muriel to be your lawfully wanted wife? And he’s like, I guess why not? And she’s like, yeah. And he gives her a little peck on the cheek and she’s fucking beaming. And then the mom arrives and Muriel is escorted out.

Laci (01:32:18):

It doesn’t mean to not see her mom, but her mom is so meek that she doesn’t even speak up for herself.

Matt (01:32:23):

Yes.

Laci (01:32:23):

What a shit thing to find clippings and to find out your mom was there after she kills herself. For something so tragic that happens in this movie, I always think of two tragic things. I always think of it as a happy movie.

Matt (01:32:41):

Yeah.

Laci (01:32:42):

It’s a huge credit to this director that he could pull that off.

Matt (01:32:47):

If I think of what are my favorite or what do I admire most in movies, it’s like two things. You could have one, your Mad Max or Mission Impossible where it’s like, damn, how did they achieve that? Or it’s something like this. It’s like a smaller thing, but how did you – Balance this

Laci (01:33:03):

Tone.

Matt (01:33:03):

Mix those tones so beautifully. And it works incredibly as a comedy and works incredibly as a drama and works incredibly as a very humane portrait of what it’s like to fucking be alive. And so Mariel sees Rhonda outside the church. She’s like, I didn’t think you’d come. And Rhonda says, I had to see for myself, see if the bridesmaids were worth it. And Mariel says –

Laci (01:33:25):

I didn’t ask them to come. They just showed up.

Matt (01:33:27):

Yeah. They just showed up. They were here. But she’s fucking thrilled to be able to show them. See, you fucking assholes. I matter. I’m the bride and your disgusting worms work for me as my bridesmaids. And I think this is a key difference between these two people because Rhonda then says, showed them what?

Laci (01:33:49):

I know, but Rhonda’s already accepted her truth and realized that it was never her fault for being a little awkward in high school. It was Porpos Spit’s fault. It was a small town’s fault. It’s a closed-minded school run by pretty girls and that’s not every school. And I think Rhonda got out into a bigger life, went beyond her mom and figured that out right away and then started resenting whatever made her feel lesser than. She also had a little more freedom to think and to be a human because her mom is not a horrible tyrant. Muriel just went from, what am I trying to say? Overbearing personality to overbearing personality. Even though we love Rhonda’s personality, they are both that. So Mariel hasn’t really gotten to feel life’s fucking fuck you as an adult yet and see that she can get past it.

Matt (01:34:49):

What you want to have, if you’re a shitty outcast or misfit in high school and you’re pining for the day when you can be a hot adult and show all these people, the actual arc you want to go on is eventually you realize, oh, I don’t even think about that shit anymore.

Laci (01:35:02):

Who

Matt (01:35:02):

Cares?

Laci (01:35:02):

I don’t even know their names. I literally don’t even know their names.

Matt (01:35:05):

Right. You don’t want to be the person who’s like, it’s my 20th high school reunion. I can show them how successful I am.

Laci (01:35:11):

Well, I didn’t go to my 20th because I was pregnant, but that’s normal.

Matt (01:35:15):

You were not pregnant at your 20th. 25th. No, you haven’t had 25 since high school.

Laci (01:35:21):

I was fucking something. It was during COVID. What was wrong with that?

Matt (01:35:25):

You graduated in 02.

Laci (01:35:27):

Oh, fuck it. I don’t care. So I guess it was in 22, but I was something.

Matt (01:35:33):

I remember you found out that they had –

Laci (01:35:35):

I found out after.

Matt (01:35:35):

Yeah. And then you got in touch with an old friend.

Laci (01:35:37):

The one before the 15 was when I was pregnant. That can’t be right.

Matt (01:35:42):

Nope.

Laci (01:35:43):

Maybe they have reunions every year.

Matt (01:35:45):

And isn’t that sad?

Laci (01:35:47):

Yes. It’s a very mettery thing to do. Very porpoise spit.

Matt (01:35:53):

It is. And so Rhonda says, “I have to go back to Porpa Spit. I have to live with my mom.”

Laci (01:36:01):

I keep forgetting they’re in Sydney. I’m like, “But you’re already there.”

Matt (01:36:03):

No, I couldn’t pay the rent without you, Muriel.ou said you’d take care of me forever and then you immediately ran off with that South African swimmer and I needed help. I needed a friend. And Muriel’s like, “Well, sorry about that, but I bought you and your mom plane tickets back to Porpa Spit so you don’t have to take the bus.” And Rhonda says, “You’re a new person.”

Laci (01:36:22):

And you’re not half the person Muriel was.

Matt (01:36:25):

Yeah. Muriel sucks. And then the bridesmaids show up and they’re like, “Rhonda, we just heard the great news. You coming back to Porpa Spit.”

Laci (01:36:32):

And then perfectly illustrate the helplessness of Rhonda’s new situation. Such an unashamed, independent person is now totally hostage if you just pick her wheels up and fucking wheel her somewhere she doesn’t want to go.

Matt (01:36:48):

And her mom’s there and they’re like, “Don’t worry, Rhonda’s mom. We’ll be here to push her around.” Great.

Laci (01:36:54):

Yeah.

Matt (01:36:56):

So Muriel moves into David’s flat and he’s like, “All right, there’s your room over there.”

Laci (01:37:00):

You fucking freak.

Matt (01:37:02):

“I’m going for a swim.” But right before he leaves, he looks at her and he’s like, “Ugh, it wasn’t just the money, was it?” She’s like, “No.” And he’s like, “What kind of person? Marry somebody they don’t know.” And she said, “Well, you did.” And he’s like, “But I want to win.” And she says, “Me too.”

Laci (01:37:18):

But now she’s got to go listen to an Abba song.

Matt (01:37:22):

Abba is what she listens to, to fantasize.

Laci (01:37:24):

No, when she’s sad again. When she’s locked in again.

Matt (01:37:29):

She doesn’t need to listen to Abba. She told Rhonda earlier –

Laci (01:37:32):

I know.

Matt (01:37:33):

That I always used to shut myself in my room and listen to Abba, but ever since I moved to Sydney with you, I haven’t had to listen to Abba at all because my life is an Abba song.

Laci (01:37:41):

Right. So when she listens to Abba after that, you know that she realizes she’s going backwards.

Matt (01:37:47):

Back in Porpa Spit, Muriel’s mom is shopping and her shoes are bothering her, so she just swaps them out for some other shoes on the rack.

Laci (01:37:54):

Totally normal thing to do. An absent-minded person, even a present-minded person could forget to pay for something. I feel like we’ve all done this. I’ve done this with shoes specifically because I think it’s an experience women have is all of a sudden they’re like, “I can’t walk another step in these painful ass shoes. I don’t think men really experience this very much.” So with someone like her who’s constantly dissociating your life is not going well at all, yeah, you forgot to fucking… And then the fucking short-haired store detective, just like the fucking mother, like daughter, it’s onto her.

Matt (01:38:34):

There’s no definitive answer. It’s shot so that you won’t know either way, but I read it as she knew what she was doing and it wasn’t even I want to get caught because her life is spiraling out of control. Either I want to get caught. I need my husband to fix something for me. If I get in trouble, I know he’ll be able to. Or I just need to take some control and maybe that’s shoplifting.

Laci (01:38:55):

Yeah. I just need to exist for a minute.

Matt (01:38:57):

But she gets caught by the worst person in the universe, this glass is wearing son of a bitch who turns her in. So she’s at the police station. Her husband’s getting her out of the police station and then they’re in the car together and the mom is like, “I’m fucking… I’m bad. The things are bad. I need help.” And he just turns on the radio so he doesn’t have to listen to her. And then they get home and he gets a suitcase and he’s like, “I want a divorce. I’m married and Deidre.” And right before he leaves, he’s like, “You know what they say? I wasn’t elected to the stite government because my family was enough to scratch. Look at this place. I never had a bloody chance.” And then the camera shifts a little and you realize one of their sons is right there witnessing all of this.

Matt (01:39:39):

Of course. And the dad has left and the mom just starts yelling at the son, “Get out and stop embarrassing your father. Go get a job.” And then the kid yells right back at her and then she’s just left there by herself and the camera stays there with her.

Laci (01:39:52):

Misplacing their anger. Yeah.

Matt (01:39:55):

And a little later at the flat, the South African swimming flat, Muriel gets a call. Her mom is dead. So she has to go back to porpoise spit and now Deidre’s in their house sort of running. I’m the new mom here.

Laci (01:40:06):

Cleaning it though. Pointedly, she’s trying to improve what was disgusting, just erasing the mom. I mean, and literally taking away the pills. I mean, even the way she died has been erased because it’s embarrassing. She can’t even get that fucking respect.

Matt (01:40:26):

Her sister was the one who found her dead and she said she had a bottle of sleeping pills next to her and dad told me to take those away.

Laci (01:40:33):

Well, and just what she says when she first talks to Muriel opens the world vastly on the mom’s life in the way that you weren’t expecting. She’s like, “What am I going to do without mom?” And it’s like, “Oh wait, there’s someone who completely depended and had a relationship with her. She seems so empty.”

Matt (01:40:55):

And someone who isn’t capable of caring for someone else, but oh no, that woman was –

Laci (01:40:59):

Caring for me and all my siblings.

Matt (01:41:01):

Right. Exactly. But Deidre says to Muriel, “Well, now the judge is going to be lenient on your dad.” Your mom made the ultimate sacrifice for him. And then Muriel looks through her mom’s scrapbook of photos and it includes newspaper cutouts of Muriel’s wedding. And as you pointed out, that’s Muriel finding out, “My mom was actually at my wedding and I didn’t see her there.”

Laci (01:41:28):

Right. And she sees in a small way the part that she played in this. “I also didn’t see my mom. I’m also surprised my sister’s going to miss her. I have this resentment because I have this independent streak that couldn’t you stand up to him? You made this harder on us and she’s got misplaced anger, I feel. The two oldest kids probably do. And then she’s like,” God, my mom had a whole other life that I never bothered to see. I never bothered to see her as a person. “And so when she’s being lied about, is that what happens at the funeral?

Matt (01:42:04):

They’re at the funeral and this preacher’s like,” I’ve just received a telex.

Laci (01:42:09):

“Oh God, yeah.

Matt (01:42:10):

From former Australian Prime Minister Bob Hawk. “Mr. Bill, my condolences.” And then in the crowd, Bill, the dad is like, “Hey, how about that? Former prime minister.”

Laci (01:42:21):

Making the oldest son turn around and tell me what the press do whenever this gets read out loud. He makes the entire thing about him. It’s disgusting.

Matt (01:42:30):

Wow. Writing down, “This loser who almost won state government 35 years ago, a former prime minister telefaxed him. Sorry about your dead wife. Wow.” And then the preacher says in his thing up on the stage, he’s like, “And Betty, one of her fondest memories was attending her daughter’s wedding, Muriel’s wedding.” And as he says this, Muriel storms out of the thing.

Laci (01:42:56):

And finds that her fake husband, but real husband actually wanted to attend this funeral for her because she finally, just like the mom in that instant, became a real person to Muriel. When Muriel got sad and lost her mom, she became a real person to the husband, to her husband. And he flew out to Porpospit and she was surprised to see him there. And I always find this part kind of shocking and like, what? She just needed to cry and be really sad and then you fuck her? And it’s very sweet. They do have sex. They wake up together and you’re like, “Well, okay, that’s kind of cushy, not exactly what I though was going to happen.” But now she’s got so much fucking swagger. She’s so attractive in her little black shirt telling him after he’s now got a crush on her, “This isn’t going to work.

Laci (01:43:49):

You don’t love me. I don’t love you.

Matt (01:43:51):

I don’t love you.

Laci (01:43:51):

I’ll give you your money back.”

Matt (01:43:52):

And he says, “Well, I don’t love you, but I like having you around.”

Laci (01:43:56):

Right, right. He’s starting… And she’s kind of fucking it up for him. Well, now you’re not married to anyone.This didn’t even work out the way you wanted it to. And you respect me so much already out of all of this that you don’t even want the money back and you’re not mad at me. That’s pretty cool.

Matt (01:44:11):

And she takes off the ring and gives it back to him. She goes back to her house to see her dad and the dad’s like, “Yeah, we got to stick together, Muriel. You got to help me with them kids.”

Laci (01:44:21):

Well, she notices, again, her world opens, the mom’s world opens. She’s looking down at the yard and says, “What happened?” And she says, “Mom set it on fire because he wouldn’t mow the grass. He kept saying you’d get to

Matt (01:44:32):

It,

Laci (01:44:32):

But he wouldn’t do it.” And it’s another she devil similarity. She just burnt it. Fuck it.

Matt (01:44:39):

Yeah.

Laci (01:44:39):

I’m burning this fuck. This place is an albatross around my neck. I will show you my power. I will burn this and kill myself. At least they couldn’t dig that away. The bitch is burnt whether you wanted to see it or not.

Matt (01:44:51):

And the dad is totally perplexed. Why would she do that? Why would she mad at now? But you got to help me with the kids. I don’t think Deidre’s keen on marrying me anymore now that the kids are with us. Someone has to look after the kids. You owe me, Muriel. Muriel hands him a check for $5,000 and she says, “I’m going to get a job in Sydney. I’m going to pay you back the rest when I can.” He’s like, “So you’re not going to help me out. Is that it?” She says, “You owe us, dad. We’re not useless. Now you’re going to look after the kids and you tell them they’re not useless.”

Laci (01:45:22):

Yeah. And then the sister pops out.

Matt (01:45:25):

But first, he’s like, “How about that Talifax from Bob Hawk?” She’s like, “How did you get that?” And he’s like, “Well, I found his office. I was nearly in the state government, 14 votes I needed. Nobody knew who’d won while we waited for the postal vote to come in.”

Laci (01:45:41):

Well, now he doesn’t have a Betty to fawn all over him and to stop him. Now he’s got a Deidre, and he’s realizing for the first time, I’m not on her level.

Matt (01:45:49):

Yeah.

Laci (01:45:51):

I don’t deserve her. And so his kid pops out the window, his other daughter, and he’s like, “Do you want me to get you a beer?” And I think for the first moment, for the first time, he’s like, “Well, that’s nice.”

Matt (01:46:02):

No, it’s incredibly sweet. He says, “The cricket’s starting. You want me to pour you a beer?”

Laci (01:46:07):

That’d be lovely.

Matt (01:46:08):

And he’s so sweet. He’s like, “That’d be lovely, Joanie. Be with you in a second.”

Laci (01:46:13):

Yeah. Yeah. And it’s just this little glimmer of hope of he might actually appreciate these people and realize they have an interior.

Matt (01:46:20):

Yeah, yeah, yeah. And this might actually be –

Laci (01:46:23):

He needed to lose a little and lose because of himself, not because of his family.

Matt (01:46:27):

And I think that was one of the things that I was finding. So moving is things can go bad and you can recover. And it might be the start of something new.

Laci (01:46:37):

It might be exactly what you needed, and you didn’t even know what you needed. You didn’t need a husband, you needed a friend, you didn’t need a mistress. And the government, you needed to care about the family you made.

Matt (01:46:48):

Never occurred to me I have a daughter who I can have a good relationship with.

Laci (01:46:52):

Wow. I have three other kids as well who now need me as their parent and caregiver. I didn’t know they needed me. I didn’t know I’d ever have to choose them. And now I’m being… He’s almost appreciative of Mariel for forcing him to step up. He needed to quit being abetted, aided.

Matt (01:47:15):

Indulged. Enabled.

Laci (01:47:18):

Yeah. Thank you. Enabled.

Matt (01:47:20):

So Muriel goes over to Rhonda’s house where all the mean girls are, and they’re like, “Here we are, Rhonda. You suck. You’re in a wheelchair. Our lives are great, except mine. I’m breaking up with Chal.”

Laci (01:47:30):

We get a divorce.

Matt (01:47:31):

And then Muriel comes in and they’re like, “What do you want, Mariel?” And she’s like, “My name’s not Mariel. It’s Mariel.” And they’re like, “Wait, wait, did you say it’s not Mariel? It’s Mariel.” And she’s like, “Yeah, Rhonda, I’m taking you back to Sydney with me.” And she’s like, “What makes you think I’d want to go anywhere with you?” She’s like, “Because we’re friends.” And one of them’s like, “Marie, you cannot come into this house and turn Rhonda against the people who love her.” And Rhonda’s like, “Yeah, she can. We’re going. She loves her mom.

Laci (01:47:56):

And she’s sweet with her mom, right? Twice. Mom, I love you. But you’re driving me crazy.”

Matt (01:48:01):

Yep. And so they just get into a cab and they leave. She lights a cigarette.

Laci (01:48:05):

Two awesome cab rides, right? Before you have a car of your own, that is fucking freedom. You just need wheels. That’s why Danny has a bike.

Matt (01:48:15):

In the shining.

Laci (01:48:15):

It’s the only thing that makes the movie not scary. I’m telling you.

Matt (01:48:19):

Yeah.

Laci (01:48:19):

It’s the only thing that helps you. He has wheels.

Matt (01:48:22):

She lights a cigarette. That’s coolest thing a woman can do is smoke a cigarette and they’re saying, “Goodbye, Pulva Spit. Goodbye, hungry jacks.

Laci (01:48:28):

Goodbye, Mole.

Matt (01:48:29):

Goodbye, crocodiles and wallaroos.

Laci (01:48:31):

There’ll be more in Sydney, I’ll bet.

Matt (01:48:50):

So Muriel’s wedding. I’m going to give it a five star. I love this movie. I thought it was great. I am so glad that you picked it. Thank you. Everybody check out Muriel’s wedding. Absolute stone cold classic.

Laci (01:49:03):

Fuck yeah. Hell yeah, Matt.

Matt (01:49:05):

What do you think, Laci?

Laci (01:49:06):

I honestly don’t. It’s a five. What I don’t know is what the fuck are we doing next? Is it time for Christmas movies? I just want to do six Christmas movies. Do we even have to do November?

Matt (01:49:16):

We got to do November. We got to do some November.

Laci (01:49:18):

What’s to do?

Matt (01:49:19):

Fine. What Christmas movie do you want to do?

Laci (01:49:21):

I don’t know. I want you to not yell at me.

Matt (01:49:23):

Okay.

Laci (01:49:25):

Die Hard.

Matt (01:49:25):

This doesn’t come out for a few days, so we can talk. So next week’s episode –

Laci (01:49:30):

I thought you get jazzed at what I just said.

Matt (01:49:32):

Hold on.

Laci (01:49:32):

Oh, we’ve already done Die Hard.

Matt (01:49:33):

No, we haven’t. So next week’s episode will be… Oh, wow. Can’t wait to talk about that. What a great Christmas movie. Everybody follow us on all the shit on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, Blue Sky.

Laci (01:49:50):

The Shit.

Matt (01:49:50):

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Laci (01:49:51):

The Shit. Royal Tennenbaums. Oh yeah? You were in the shit in that one?

Matt (01:49:56):

Was that in Royal Tinenbaums? Were you in the shit? I don’t –

Laci (01:50:00):

It was Bill Murray’s. It might have been the movie about college.

Matt (01:50:03):

Or there was Rushmore. There was Rushmore, yeah. High School. You’re in the shit? Patreon.com/oneweekrental, get bonus content for $2 a month. And that’s –

Laci (01:50:13):

Okay, I love you. My voice is bad.

Matt (01:50:17):

Goodbye.