SnoopyStyle Eddie Hopper (Alan Alda) owns a small construction business. The latest project falls through and he decides to go into debt to finish the house. At a family gathering for grandpa (Joey Bishop)'s birthday, his daughter Betsy (Molly Ringwald) announces her engagement to boyfriend Jake Lovell (Dylan Walsh). They want a small intimate wedding. To his wife Lola (Madeline Kahn)'s dismay, he gets into a competition with Jake's rich corporate raider father and ends up paying for an extravagant wedding. He asks Lola's sister Gloria (Catherine O'Hara)'s sleazy cheating developer husband Oscar Henner (Joe Pesci) for help. Oscar introduces him to mobster-like Georgie (Burt Young) who in exchange for a loan installs his nephew Stevie Dee (Anthony LaPaglia) to manage the home construction. Stevie Dee is taken with the house and Eddie's elder daughter cop Connie (Ally Sheedy). Then there is the wedding with fashion student Betsy's unconventional style and conflicting non-religious sensibility. The shootout doesn't help either.Alan Alda wrote, directed, and starred in this movie. It's not that funny and overloaded with story from every other character. The saving grace is that I like everybody starting with Alda. He has an easy charm and the family has a loving chemistry. The wedding dysfunction works some of the time but it is simply not funny enough. As for the Razzie nominations of Molly Ringwald and Ally Sheedy, I don't get it. Ringwald's character can be a little annoying but that's about it. Sheedy and newcomer LaPaglia are actually endearing together and I love their budding relationship. Somebody at the Razzies must have had it in for this movie.

tedg This is a significant failure for interesting reasons.Situations can be funny. Worlds can be funny. People can be too, but not all at the same time.Alda comes from a tradition where people are funny. Situations are there, and worlds too, but only so that funny people can be so.This is his script, and the whole idea is to fill the screen with people that he thinks are amusing. His style is soft caricatures so that's what we have here: soft Jewish mother, soft gangster, soft, soft, soft. Something like this formula works for MASH because the brand in such TeeVee shows is the accrued recognition without the edges. But this is long form film, not a skit. Edges are required. Even the gangster shootout is padded with charm. In such a situation, we seek out the most interesting character. Since there are none as characters, the game is to find the actor playing a character that we find appealing. Fortunately that is easy, since each actor is apparent as an actor.The one that is the focus for me this time and when I saw it as new, is Anthony LaPaglia as the genteel second generation gangster. He falls for Ally Sheedy, here in red hair. The expected center was to have been Betsy, played by Molly Ringwald. Her character is given one trait only, but that's all any is allowed. She is a wacky dress designer. The dresses aren't amusing, and most of them not that odd. This film, I think, is the turning point in her career, where we saw that she wasn't charming in the way we had seen earlier. I'm sure that is what she wanted, but there's nothing to substitute for how she was presented earlier.Its all the more striking because her sister is played by Ally Sheedy.Ted's Evaluation -- 1 of 3: You can find something better to do with this part of your life.

TxMike I had seen 'Betsy's Wedding' years ago, and recently bought the DVD for under $6. The DVD transfer is very good for a movie of this age, the movie is actually better than I remembered it, and apparently under-appreciated by most viewers. Alan Alda wrote and directed it, and plays the father, Eddie Hopper, a general housing contractor who gets in a little over his head. There are several stories going on, and the actual wedding is the least significant of them all. It is a superb comedy, with great dialog, especially from Australian actor Anthony LaPaglia who plays Stevie Dee, and its 'R' rating is consistent with its mature theme, I rate it '8' of 10.The rest of my comments, for my own recollection, contain SPOILERS, please read no further. The movie begins with Betsy (Molly Ringwald) and her boyfriend Jake with her family at their modest rural home in West Hampton, celebrating grandpa's birthday, and announcing that they are getting married. The proud parents of two daughters begin to think about a small, intimate ceremony and reception. Until they meet Jake's investment banking parents at a restaurant, rich folks, who live in a NYC home that looks more like a museum, and who are determined to 'help' the kids have a nice wedding they will remember. As they walk into the exercise room, Jake's mom says, 'Henry is a little competitive, he knows exactly how many repetitions each of his vice presidents can do.' Well, Eddie is competitive too, and the first story is how the two families compete to have their way, plan the wedding, never mind what the kids want.The second story concerns Eddie losing financial backing for a spec house he is building on the water in Long Island, his shady brother-in-law Oscar (Joe Pesci, in a nice role) helps him get mob-backed financing, which almost gets Eddie killed in a drive-by shooting outside a restaurant with the crooks, but Stevie Dee, the nephew, is being introduced to the 'business' and at the house site notices Eddie's other daughter, Connie (Ally Sheedy), a cop who 'loves to arrest people', gives her a high for the rest of the day. Which is the third story, Stevie Dee's quest for Connie, against all odds.A fourth story is Oscar's wife, who knows Oscar is cheating in an affair with his young blonde secretary, she decides to get even instead of getting mad. Oscar has a big mouth and tells her of all his potential deals, she buys a property first under an alias, then sells it back to Oscar for a big profit, saving up for the day she dumps him. We witness one of them, he needs to buy a fish market, tells wife he would go as high as $1.5million, she writes it in her book, later at the wedding reception he laments how much 'that guy' stuck him for, 'it was almost as if he knew how high I was willing to pay.'The compact 90-minute movie ends with the (short) wedding and the reception at the Long Island construction site in a tent, obtained by Oscar, but it rains, the ratty tent leaks, bursts, everyone gets wet, but the newlyweds are happy, Eddie gets out of the arrangement with the mob, and Stevie Dee and Connie seem happy togther. Stevie Dee announces to his uncle, 'I've decided what I want to do with my life. I will enroll in the police academy.'Easy to miss is a small role by Samuel L. Jackson as the taxi dispatcher. This was a few years before he started to get prime roles which propelled him to stardom.

Guy143 Like "Parenthood" and "Moonstruck," Betsy's Wedding is a funny, feel-good movie about a wonderfully eccentric family and their hilarious trials and tribulations - it's about everything but their daughter's wedding!This movie has it all! The mob, crazy romances, and outrageous revenge schemes! The cast is so wonderful and I give a thumbs up for Mr. Alan Alda's direction. I loved Madeline Kahn as always, Ally Sheedy was her sexiest, Molly Ringwald was great, and a special gratitude for Catherine O'Hara and Joe Pesci for making me roll of my seat laughing.If your a fan of "Father of the Bride 1 and 2" or "Runaway Bride," your sure going to enjoy "Betsy's Wedding."SCANDAL. LUST. DISASTER. INTRIGUE. ...and the invitations haven't even gone out yet!Enjoy the show!