Please note: this article discusses key plot points from Muriel's Wedding
More than three decades after its release, Muriel's Wedding continues to captivate audiences worldwide. It was given new life with a modern musical adaptation, but a restoration of the film through the NFSA Restores program in 2024 is a testament to its enduring legacy. Amal Awad speaks to the film’s writer and director, PJ Hogan.
Sitting down with PJ Hogan is a little like taking a mini masterclass in filmmaking. The writer-director is as open about the pitfalls of trying to make a film as he is about the joys of pulling it off. It may have become a roaring success, but he says nobody wanted to make Muriel's Wedding.
‘Because so many people had rejected it, I thought, “Well, this is it. If this doesn't work, I'm not a filmmaker… and I don't deserve to be one because I've managed to fail in so many different areas.”’
Making the film was a litmus test – a risky one. Like the character Muriel (Toni Collette), and her attempt to escape an aimless existence in small-town Porpoise Spit, this was his ‘last shot’.
‘I said, “I'm going to be honest; if this is going to be the last time I do make a film, I'm going put everything I have into it”. It really was a film where everyone thought, “Oh, we love it but we're making it for ourselves. This could just end up straight to video”’.
The risk paid off. The ABBA-enhanced ugly duckling tale became a global sensation that, 30 years on from its release, continues to find audiences. Hogan has gone on to make many more films, including the smash hit romantic comedy My Best Friend’s Wedding (1997), which starred Julia Roberts.
‘You don’t know your themes till you look back. But I know I was drawn to My Best Friend's Wedding for the one reason that she didn't end up with the guy; that wasn't the point. The point was that she was scared. She didn't want to be alone. She had lived a life withdrawing, afraid of love.’
Like the sisterly bond between Muriel and her best friend Rhonda (Rachel Griffiths), My Best Friend’s Wedding trumpets the power of platonic love. Hogan boosted the role of gay editor George (Rupert Everett). ‘I didn't know how I was going to do it when we started. I didn't actually know until the reshoots but I thought, Julianne [Roberts] is going to end up dancing with George.’
While Muriel’s Wedding is heavily marketed as a comedy, Hogan knows it’s a drama.
‘I don't mind that because it draws the audience in and then once its hooks are in, you can't look away. You're dealing with some really painful stuff and hopefully, some really truthful stuff,’ he says. ‘And when it’s funny, it’s really funny.’
Yet the dramedy of it all only came into full focus for much of the crew when they filmed Muriel’s wedding at the church. More specifically, the tragic moment when Muriel walks out a newlywed in a fake marriage with swimmer David (Daniel Lapaine), and goes straight past her mother (Jeanie Drynan), the woman she has ripped off and abandoned.
‘The crew sent a spokesperson up to say, “Look, we're all very upset by that scene. We think you're compromising the film. This is a comedy, and you’ve just shot something that isn't funny, it’s heartbreaking”', Hogan recalls.
They didn’t tell him not to use it, but they said that when we next see Muriel, she should be holding her mother's gift to indicate that she had seen her mother.
Did he do that?
‘No. I said she didn't see her mother, that's her flaw. She doesn't see her mother until her mother is gone. And then she sees her mother and it's too late.’
Hogan knew what the story was and was unwilling to compromise the truthfulness of the tragedy.
Hogan says that crew, despite having clear roles, are all writers and directors. ‘Almost all of them. And they all think that they can do this better than you. And sometimes, given the director, they're right. But if it's your film, you have to commit to your vision because someone else has a vision. And if there's a void… What's that old saying… a vacuum will be filled? That'll happen on set. And I've seen it happen.’
‘If anything could be called a comedy about abuse, it's this movie because Muriel is an abused person, and abused people carry, not only the damage, but if they're not careful, they can also become an abusive person. You can become what you are subjected to. I mean, any psychiatrist can tell you that the damage can live on,’ he says.
Hogan was subconsciously aware of the psychological undercurrents of the film when he was making it. ‘But I know it absolutely now. And it sounds weird to say “a comedy about abuse” but only because there’s nothing funny about it.’
The abusive and bullying behaviour of Bill Heslop (played by Bill Hunter) towards his family is on full display in this clip from Muriel's Wedding (1994). NFSA title: 255178
Hogan has been open in the past that Muriel is autobiographical. While he insisted it was fictional in the early promotional days, the success of the film saw his sister Helena, upon whom Muriel is based, acknowledge the connection. He had her permission to base Muriel on her; the one request was that he make her ‘heroic’.
While the character of Muriel drew heavily from real life – including the ride-or-die best friend – the film is a sprawling stocktake of an abusive childhood. On his father (‘not a great guy’), Hogan says he went ‘a little easier on him’ in the film. His mother, whose death and funeral in real life led to one of the most upsetting periods of his life, inspired Hogan to write. ‘Because I thought I'm going to give her a voice; the voice that she was never allowed when she was alive’.
His mother, like so many, believed in the dream of the good life. ‘Believed in the marriage, home, family. That these things will fulfil you,’ Hogan says. ‘And while some of these things are fulfilling, sometimes they're just crushing.’
‘I've been around the world with this movie, and I've had people from all over the world say, “that's my mum”. I mean every colour, creed… people have said “that’s my mum”. And so I know she's a universal figure because I’ve met her universally.’
Hogan, who says he finds other people more interesting than himself, doesn’t have a film counterpart. But he admits that the ABBA obsession was his, not his sister’s. ‘I grew up loving ABBA. Because home was so horrible, ABBA was an escape.’
His favourite is ‘SOS’. ‘I loved it so much when I was a kid and it's probably their saddest song.’ This ‘complex, serious and beautiful song’ was also a signal to the world that there was more to ABBA than ‘Waterloo’.
In 2024, the NFSA restored Muriel’s Wedding, a months-long process of which Hogan was a part. But he has a confession: ‘I didn’t know it needed restoration.’
Hogan is a regular at Muriel screenings, and they use Blu-ray, not film projectors. ‘I was really amazed when the NFSA showed me the materials and… it was so damaged. Like in the last scene when Muriel comes to apologise to Rhonda, there was a huge mark, which wasn't on the original negative, going right down Rachel Griffiths’ face. When I looked at that, I was just stunned.’
A side-by-side comparison of the original print of Muriel's Wedding (1994) and the 2024 NFSA Restores version.
Hogan approved every step of the restoration process, which took six months.
‘I'm just so glad that it happened because it was just going to get worse. And now there's a print out there which is always going to be in a vault that looks exactly like it did when I approved the first answer print.’
The process was an opportunity to revisit the film, which Hogan revitalised for the 2017 stage musical featuring music from Kate Miller-Heidke and Keir Nuttall. He was worried about how it had aged. But he only emerged from this review with one wish.
‘I was very aware what a sea of white faces it was and that would be what I would change about it. I just wish there’d been more diversity in the casting. And… because it went on stage, the diversity in the casting just kind of transformed it for me. In one of the iterations, Rhonda was black. And it was just so great. And I wish the film was in that way a little bit more like what I discovered was so exciting about the musical,’ Hogan says.
But he acknowledges that, due to the autobiographical nature of the film, he was putting people he knew on screen. ‘So I didn't have any objectivity at all. And you know what, objectivity might have hurt it because… there are just some things that I think had I been making the film now I might change. And when I saw the restoration, I just thought, even the things that I find a little embarrassing because it's so personal, I’m glad are in there.’
The NFSA restoration of Muriel’s Wedding premiered at NFSA’s Arc Cinema in Canberra on 4 December 2024.
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Main image: Production shot of Toni Collette and director PJ Hogan during filming of Muriel's Wedding. NFSA title: 800734
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The National Film and Sound Archive of Australia acknowledges Australia’s Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work and live and gives respect to their Elders both past and present.
