''Jenny's Wedding'' is a 2015 American romantic

comedy-drama Comedy drama, also known by the portmanteau ''dramedy'', is a genre of dramatic works that combines elements of comedy and drama. The modern, scripted-television examples tend to have more humorous bits than simple comic relief seen in a typical ...

film written and directed by

Mary Agnes Donoghue Mary Agnes Donoghue (26 March 1943 in Queens) is an American screenwriter and director. Following early jobs as a secretary and short story writer, Donoghue's first writing credit was the 1984 film ''The Buddy System''. She went on to pen the scre ...

and starring

Katherine Heigl Katherine Marie Heigl ( ; born November 24, 1978) is an American actress and former fashion model. She played Dr. Izzie Stevens on the American Broadcasting Company, ABC television medical drama ''Grey's Anatomy'' from 2005 to 2010, a role tha ...

Alexis Bledel Kimberly Alexis Bledel ( ; born September 16, 1981) is an American actress and model. She is known for her role as Rory Gilmore on the television series ''Gilmore Girls'' (2000–2007), and Emily Malek in ''The Handmaid's Tale (TV series), The ...

Tom Wilkinson Thomas Geoffrey Wilkinson (born 5 February 1948)Born January–March 1948, according to the ''Births, Marriages & Deaths Index of England & Wales, 1916–2005.''; at ancestry.com is an English actor of film, television, and stage. He has rece ...

Linda Emond Linda may refer to: As a name * Linda (given name), a female given name (including a list of people and fictional characters so named) * Linda (singer) (born 1977), stage name of Svetlana Geiman, a Russian singer * Anita Linda (born Alice Lake ...

Grace Gummer Grace Jane Gummer (born May 9, 1986) is an American actress. She received a Theatre World Award for her Broadway debut in the 2011 revival of '' Arcadia''. Her television work includes recurring roles in '' The Newsroom'' and '' American Horror ...

and

Matthew Metzger Matthew Frederic Metzger (born March 24, 1980) is an American actor and singer. Life and career Metzger was born in Peoria, Illinois. He gained fame when he participated in the popular reality television series ''American Idol'' in season 3. H ...

. Heigl plays Jenny, a woman who finally decides to get married, but her choice of partner tears her conventional family apart. ''Jenny's Wedding'' was filmed on location in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

from October 2013. An Indiegogo campaign was later launched to help raise money for post-production costs. The film was released on July 31, 2015, in a

limited release __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few theaters across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

IFC Films IFC Films is an American film production and distribution company based in New York. It is an offshoot of IFC owned by AMC Networks. It distributes mainly independent films under its own name, select foreign films and documentaries under its S ...

Plot

Jenny is the middle daughter of a

conservative Conservatism is a cultural, social, and political philosophy that seeks to promote and to preserve traditional institutions, practices, and values. The central tenets of conservatism may vary in relation to the culture and civilization i ...

Catholic The Catholic Church, also known as the Roman Catholic Church, is the largest Christian church, with 1.3 billion baptized Catholics worldwide . It is among the world's oldest and largest international institutions, and has played a ...

family in

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

. She is a

closeted ''Closeted'' and ''in the closet'' are metaphors for lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender and other (LGBTQ+) people who have not disclosed their sexual orientation or gender identity and aspects thereof, including sexual identity and human ...

lesbian A lesbian is a Homosexuality, homosexual woman.Zimmerman, p. 453. The word is also used for women in relation to their sexual identity or sexual behavior, regardless of sexual orientation, or as an adjective to characterize or associate n ...

who tells her family that her partner of five years, Kitty, is her roommate. Her parents, Eddie and Rose, have always dreamed of the day their middle daughter will get married and are always reminding her about her biological clock and trying to fix her up with men. Jenny realizes that she does want to get married and have a family, and proposes to Kitty. She decides to come out to her family and her parents are taken aback that she is not only gay, but engaged to a woman. Jenny has the support of her older brother, Michael, who says he suspected she was gay since high school. Her younger sister Anne always felt that Jenny was their mother's favorite and is not so much upset that Jenny is a lesbian as that she lied to her all those years. They reconcile when Jenny asks her to be her maid of honor. Jenny's parents want her to stay closeted in front of their friends but she refuses, causing a big fight with her father. Her parents at first refuse to go to the wedding, but eventually her mother realizes that Jenny is the same daughter she's always been proud of and agrees to go. Jenny's father has a talk with his best friend the day of the wedding and finally also agrees to go, and both parents walk her down the aisle. Over the closing credits a picture is shown of the whole family, including Jenny and Kitty with their new baby.

Cast

as Jennifer "Jenny" Farrell, Eddie and Rose's daughter, Michael and Anne's sister, Kitty's fiancée *

as Kitty Friedman, Jennifer's fiancée *

as Eddie Farrell, Michael, Anne and Jennifer's dad and Rose's husband *

as Rose Farrell, Michael, Anne and Jennifer's mom and Eddie's wife *

as Anne Farrell, Michael and Jennifer's sister, Frankie's wife, Eddie and Rose's daughter *

as Michael Farrell, Anne and Jennifer's brother, Eddie and Rose's son and Lorraine's husband * Houston Rhines as Frankie, Anne's husband * Cathleen O'Malley as Lorraine Farrell, Michael's wife *

Sam McMurray Sam, SAM or variants may refer to: Places * Sam, Benin * Sam, Boulkiemdé, Burkina Faso * Sam, Bourzanga, Burkina Faso * Sam, Kongoussi, Burkina Faso * Sam, Iran * Sam, Teton County, Idaho, United States, a populated place People and fictional ...

as Denny O'Leary, Ellen's husband *

Diana Hardcastle Diana Hardcastle Wilkinson is an English actress who has appeared largely in television roles. Career Hardcastle has appeared in episodes of ''Midsomer Murders'', '' Inspector Lynley'' and '' Taggart''. She played recurring roles in the series ' ...

as Ellen O'Leary, Denny's wife

Production

Conception and development

''Jenny's Wedding'' was written and directed by

. She also produced the film, along with Gail Levin and MM Productions'

Michelle Manning Michelle Manning is an American film director, television director, and producer best known for producing ''Sixteen Candles'' and ''The Breakfast Club''. She served as the President of Production for Paramount Pictures from 1997 to 2005. In 2 ...

. The rights to the film were put up for sale at the American Film Market from November 6, 2013.

Filming

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

on ''Jenny's Wedding'' commenced on October 28, 2013, in

Greater Cleveland The Cleveland metropolitan area, or Greater Cleveland as it is more commonly known, is the metropolitan area surrounding the city of Cleveland in Northeast Ohio, United States. According to the 2020 United States Census results, the five-county ...

. The film was expected to shoot in the metropolitan area for three to four weeks. Filming locations included University Heights City Hall and

Cuyahoga County Council The Cuyahoga County Council is the legislative branch of the government of Cuyahoga County in Ohio. Cuyahoga, along with Summit, is one of only two of Ohio's 88 counties not governed by a three-member commission. The council and county executiv ...

man Julian Rogers's home in

Cleveland Heights Cleveland Heights is a city in Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States, and one of Cleveland's historical streetcar suburbs. The city's population was 45,312 at the 2020 census. As of the 2010 census, Cleveland Heights was ranked the 8th largest ...

. Rogers and his family moved out on October 23 and the studio paid for a rental in

Shaker Heights Shaker or Shakers may refer to: Religious groups * Shakers, a historically significant Christian sect * Indian Shakers, a smaller Christian denomination Objects and instruments * Shaker (musical instrument), an indirect struck idiophone * Cockta ...

. Representatives from the studio had noticed the house and asked Rogers "out of the blue" if they could use it for filming. The family returned home in November. On November 15, Heigl was seen shooting some scenes for the film on Euclid Avenue in

Downtown Cleveland Downtown Cleveland is the central business district of Cleveland, Ohio. The economic and symbolic center of the city and the Cleveland-Akron-Canton, OH Combined Statistical Area, it is Cleveland's oldest district, with its Public Square laid out b ...

inside the 5th Street Arcades. Some filming was done at the Trinity Cathedral. Production wrapped in Cleveland during the same month.

Post-production

An Indiegogo campaign was set up to aid in post-production with Donoghue and her crew asking $150,000 to cover the costs of music, titles, color and sound. Lucas Shaw from ''The Wrap'' thought that some of the money raised would go towards taking the film to festivals, as, at the time, it had yet to secure a domestic distributor. The campaign ended on April 12, 2014, having raised $96,691.

Release

The film had its world premiere at the Outfest Los Angeles Film Festival on July 10, 2015.

acquired distribution rights to the film and released it on July 31, 2015, in the United States in a

and through

video on demand Video on demand (VOD) is a media distribution system that allows users to access videos without a traditional video playback device and the constraints of a typical static broadcasting schedule. In the 20th century, broadcasting in the form of o ...

a day later on August 1, 2015.

Reception

''Jenny's Wedding'' received mainly negative reviews from critics. Review aggregation website

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

gives the film a 20% rating based on reviews from 15 critics, with an average rating of 4.02/10. Jeannette Catsoulis of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid ...

'' noted that, "One of the many irritants in this trite, well-intentioned lecture on tolerance: The audience is always several moves ahead of the script." The Hungarian '' National Media- and News Authority (Nemzeti Média és Hírközlési Hatóság)'' in 2021 had declared ''Jenny's Wedding'' unfit for consumption by children, invoking the "Protection of Children act"", limiting viewership to only those above eighteen years of age."

References

External links

* *
''Jenny's Wedding''
{{Webarchive, url=https://web.archive.org/web/20140102192036/http://www.comingsoon.net/films.php?id=110588 , date=2014-01-02 at

ComingSoon.net Mandatory (formerly CraveOnline Media) is a lifestyle website based in Los Angeles with sales offices in New York City, Chicago and San Francisco. The site is owned by media company Evolve Media, LLC. Mandatory focuses its contents into the male- ...

2015 comedy films American comedy films American LGBT-related films Films about weddings Films set in Cleveland Films shot in Cleveland Indiegogo projects Lesbian-related films Crowdfunded films Same-sex marriage in film 2010s American films