Polish Wedding MPAA Rating: PG-13 Entertainment: +2 Content: -1 1/2

The Pzoniak family lives in a suburb of Detroit in a working class neighborhood. Jadzia (Lena Olin) adores her five children, four boys and a daughter. She tolerates her husband, Bolek (Gabriel Byrne), who works nights baking bread. Jadzia and her daughter-in-law clean office buildings while teenage Hala (Clare Danes) takes care of her brother's baby. Hala sneaks out every night, meeting her friends and flirting with the neighborhood boys, determined not to be tied down like her sister-in-law. Soon after Russell (Adam Trese), a handsome local policeman, sweeps the young girl off her feet, Hala discovers she's pregnant. This development is particularly disturbing because Hala has been chosen by the priest to lead the procession at the Festival of Virgins. Meanwhile, passive, quiet Bolek correctly suspects Jadzia has a secret lover. In spite of all these complications, the Pzoniak family becomes closer. Although Polish family traditions provide a colorful backdrop, Polish Wedding probably has too little plot to hold audience interest.

As the matriarch of the family, Jadzia rules her roost, and the family adores her. Yet she betrays their belief in her as their role model when she sneaks out each night to be with her lover. In one scene she and her wealthy businessman lover roll around on the floor of the freshly mopped restroom in the building where she works. Later, the two are in his home and sex is implied, but their is no nudity in either scene. However, Jadzia does make the right choice when asked by her lover to leave her family. Hala and Russell's one encounter shows sensuous caressing with sex implied. But the most disturbing scene is of Hala leading the Festival of Virgins and after one of her brothers yells that she is pregnant, the crowd expresses shock and dismay. Then, as Hala continues leading the procession, they become quiet, then bow as she passes by as though she is holy. Along with these mixed moral messages are seven regular profanities, a few obscenities and crudities.

Preview Reviewer: Mary Draughon
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures, 10201 W. Pico Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90035.