Poor little Carol Kane in 1972's Wedding in White, playing one of the most pathetic characters in cinematic history. Director William Fruet invites you to contemplate how horrible her life is. It sure is horrible, yep. I guess it's worth pondering.
Kane plays sixteen year old Jeanie who lives with her parents in a little house in Ontario during World War II. Her brother in the army comes home with a friend named Billy. Jeanie is shy but utterly transparent, completely emotionally available but mostly everyone's too busy complaining and drinking beer to notice.
Fruet goes out of his way to establish how dumb everyone is. Jeanie's father is played by Donald Pleasence who receives an award from his coworkers but mostly complains about making a speech. He lacks the basic foresight to see how he'll feel in the actual event. When he takes the floor, he's adorably bashful. Jeanie isn't the only one who can't help wearing her feelings on her sleeve.
Her brother's friend, Billy, is rejected by Jeanie's cheaply narcissistic best friend. So he drunkenly rapes Jeanie when she's trying to sleep on the couch. Fruet doesn't shoot it very well, it looks more like Billy dry humps the side of the couch, I was honestly surprised when she turned out to be pregnant later. Remember, everyone's dumb, so her father's solution is to have Jeanie marry his his best friend, a man in his 60s.
It's edifying. I'm sure things like this happen all too often. It kind of reminds me of British kitchen sink movies, like Saturday Night and Sunday Morning. Those movies tend to feel somehow more substantial, though. I guess Wedding in White feels like the filmmaker is looking down on these poor fools while the kitchen sink movies tend to find a kind of poetry in the characters played by Albert Finney or Rita Tushingham. Carol Kane is very pretty and sweet but I can't remember knowing anyone so devoid of a spark.
Wedding in White is available on The Criterion Channel.
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