C'est la Vie!

Thanks to characters who are both relatable and sympathetic despite (or, in some cases, because) of their flaws, this comedy manages the none too easy trick of making us root for a group of buffoons. We want the fast-food worker who's taking his first crack at waitering -- he mistakenly fetches musical flutes rather than glass flutes to serve the champagne -- to succeed. Ditto for the event manager, who can't keep herself from getting into vicious verbal sparring matches with the wedding singer, even mere seconds after promising she would try harder. These are people we feel like we know or have known. In some cases, you may even find yourself squirming a bit because you understand all too well how they're feeling. Thankfully, the humorous lens through which many of these scenes are presented keeps that feeling of familiar discomfort from ever becoming too much to bear.

By the end of the night, there isn't much in the way of resolution to most of the characters' specific problems, but viewers are left with the feeling that everyone involved has experienced a moment of self-reflection and that they might just learn from it -- even the clueless groom who, at one point, floats away into the black night sky after a wedding performance stunt gone awry. It's a bit sluggish in spots, and a handful of scenes could leave Western audiences wondering whether they were intended to be dramatic or whether something was lost in translation, but C'est la Vie ends up -- much like the wedding it depicts -- as a modest, well-meaning, warm-hearted success.