Table 19

Anna Kendrick stars in a slightly unusual romcom that is notable for being more amiable than the usual Hollywood fare.

Kendrick is Eloise, the ex-maid of honour, who is still attending her best friend’s wedding despite being ditched from the bridal party after breaking up with the best man Wyatt Russell, brother of the bride. To avoid awkwardness she is relegated to the back of the room, Table 19. And as she planned the wedding Eloise knows just what a humiliation this is: seated next business acquaintances of the bride’s father, Craig Robinson and Lisa Kudrow, a nanny, June Squibb, a ‘successful businessman’ who is clearly nothing of the sort, Stephen Merchant, and a frustrated teenage lothario, Tony Revolori.

The Breakfast Club is an obvious point of reference for Table 19, and there is an undeniably goodhumoured spirit to proceedings that counts for much. But the presence of the Duplass brothers as original screenwriters makes you wonder what this movie was envisioned as in earlier drafts, especially as a striking camera movement when Eloise dances with a stranger and the best man sees it almost feels like a leftover from a draft where the real time wedding was being imagined as one single long take.

Table 19 isn’t hilarious, but it is more thoughtful than one would imagine and hides its grand romantic gesture with some glee.

3/5