There's a sadism to ""Confetti,"" and director Debbie Isitt doesn't provide a convincing way out of it. It's a mockumentary about six people undergoing a completely humiliating experience, learning nothing about themselves along the way. The best mockumentaries, however, are about people doing not what they hate, but what they love. They require a flexible sentimentality and an eye for how people really are.
""Confetti"" involves a British magazine contest between three engaged couples; the prize for best wedding is a new house. Two eccentric wedding coordinators, who have three months to plan all three ceremonies, are unleashed onto the participants. There's Matt and Sam, who want a wedding based on Hollywood musicals; Josef and Isabelle, who want a tennis theme; and Michael and Joanna, who insist on a nudist (""nativist"") ceremony. To the film's credit, there are several laughs in the introduction of these characters. But ""Confetti"" does nothing more than introduce them again and again. The actors—all notable British comedians—improvised every line. All are talented, but ""Confetti"" doesn't give them legitimate hilarity to thrive in. Their characters are more creepy than funny, and this is the movie's downfall.
There are at least a dozen gags about how awkward the nudists' lifestyle is. Michael and Joanna argue relentlessly with the magazine's editors about having a completely nude wedding, and one wonders why they entered the contest in the first place. Why, as ""nativists,"" would they participate in such a commercialized competition? Surely no character from ""A Mighty Wind"" would have entered this contest. They'd be too busy playing folk music and doing their own thing. And they wouldn't care who wins at the end either (neither will the audience, but for different reasons).
Josef and Isabelle begin as the most interesting characters. As tennis players, they have a competitive meanness, and suspect (correctly) that the editors are putting the least money into their wedding. Josef is compulsive, paranoid, and anal—in other words, he's a real person. He and Isabelle grasp the stupidity of the situation, and look to be the voices of reason. Too bad they suddenly, inexplicably, become the dumbest people in the film; Isabelle gets a nose job at an editor's request, and Josef has many silly scenes of rage.
A similar thing happens to Matt and Sam; they start the film as lovebirds pursuing the wedding of their dreams, disregarding their lack of musical talent. But as the contest gets underway, they become morbidly worried about the quality of the ceremony.
If ""Confetti"" weren't so devoid of humor, would it matter that its characters are so incomplete? Yes, it would. The characters are the reason why the material isn't humorous. Straight-up laughs aren't good enough here. As a mockumentary, ""Confetti"" needs personalities which could only thrive in 16 mm. It needs a passion for real life directing the humor, it needs to be more endearing than a standard comedy about the same subject, but it has none of these things. This material would likely be ill-conceived and uninteresting in any genre, but a dose of legitimate sweetness would have gone a long way.
