Kristen Bell’s Spiteful New Comedy Is Climbing The Charts On Streaming
People We Hate at the Wedding starring Kristen Bell is a top performer on Amazon.
The wedding bells are ringing on Prime Video. In addition to Jennifer Lopez’s new romantic comedy Shotgun Wedding sitting at number one on the service, another wedding movie starring Kristen Bell is quickly zipping up the streaming charts. According to Flix Patrol, a website that tracks all titles climbing the charts on various streaming platforms around the globe, The People We Hate at the Wedding is also on the list of the top 10 most-streamed movies on Amazon Prime.
Directed by Claire Scanlon (Saved by the Bell, Brooklyn Nine-Nine), the film follows a pair of American siblings, Alice (Kristen Bell) and Paul (Ben Platt), who reluctantly agree to attend the wedding of their estranged, wealthy half-sister (Cynthia Addai-Robinson) in the English countryside alongside their mother, Donna (Allison Janney).
Over the course of the wedding week, the family’s many skeletons are wrenched from the closet, and the unlikely reunion gives everyone the motivation to move their own lives forward. The movie is a modern wedding comedy for anyone with a slightly dysfunctional family or anyone who’s been forced to attend a wedding they desperately tried to avoid.
The People We Hate at the Wedding is an adaptation of Grant Ginder’s 2016 novel of the same name. The film was announced to be in development by Amazon Studios and FilmNation Entertainment in March 2021, with Allison Janney, Annie Murphy, and Ben Platt being cast shortly after. After Murphy dropped out of the project, Kristen Bell was brought in as her replacement.
Production on the movie, which was written by Lissie Molyneux-Logelin and Wendy Molyneux, began in London in September 2021. The same month, Tony Goldwyn, Dustin Milligan, Karan Soni, Cynthisa Addai-Robinson, Isaac de Bankole, Jorma Taccone, and Julian Ovenden joined the cast, with Rufus Jones, Lizzy Caplan, and John Macmillan coming aboard the project shortly after. The film premiered on Amazon Prime on November 18, 2022.
Unfortunately, even though The People We Hate at the Wedding is currently climbing the streaming charts, the film doesn’t seem to be landing with critics. Although critics have praised the performances turned in by the ensemble cast, with Kristen Bell being described as the standout star, they blasted the predictable script and tedious dialogue. Santanu Das of the Hindustan Times harshly called the movie, “A clueless comedy that offers no laughs.”
On the review aggregator website Rotten Tomatoes, The People We Hate at the Wedding has a score of 32 percent from critics. That percentage is based on 41 reviews by professional critics. Meanwhile, the film has an audience score of 41 percent, which is averaged from just over 100 reviews by everyday viewers.
The People We Hate at the Wedding, starring Kristen Bell, may not have been the critical hit Amazon Studios was hoping for, but it’s certainly proving to be quite popular on Prime Video.
Regardless of how poorly the film has been received by viewers, it still serves as yet another title to bolster the streamer’s catalog of original content. Plus, for anyone who is left unimpressed with the movie, there’s always Grant Ginder’s acclaimed novel they can fall back on.
