‘Top End Wedding’ brings the rom-com to Australia’s Northern Territory

You’ve never seen a rom-com like this.

Sure, Top End Wedding treats you to the stereotypical elements of the genre: going home, family drama, car trouble, a right-at-the-gate airport scene, and one hell of a bridesmaids troupe.  

But it’s not set in Love Actually’s London, You’ve Got Mail‘s New York, or My Best Friend’s Wedding‘s Chicago. It’s set in Australia’s Northern Territory.

Co-written by Larrakia actor Miranda Tapsell and Joshua Tyler, and directed by The Sapphires‘ maestro Wayne Blair, Top End Wedding follows assiduous Sydney lawyer Lauren (Tapsell) whose engagement to Ned (Gwilym Lee) takes them all the way home to the Territory to see her parents. 

Only trouble is, her mother (Ursula Yovich) has gone AWOL, and there are just 10 days until the wedding — it’s literally all the time Lauren is allowed to take off work by her intense but supportive boss Hampton (Kerry Fox).

The film comes loaded with the pre-wedding jitters and ‘home again’ family reunion vibes of Mamma Mia!, Sweet Home Alabama, Runaway Bride, or My Big Fat Greek Wedding, but has a uniquely Australian voice, as we see Lauren reconnect with her family roots in the Top End.

“That was such a learning curve for me to understand what my gauge was, because it’s not Reese Witherspoon’s, it’s not Katherine Heigl’s or Julia Roberts’, I have to find my own,” said Tapsell onstage at the Sydney premiere.

Tapsell’s brilliant writing (she’s a self-confessed Nora Ephron fan) and comedic timing reels you in from the very beginning, with a priceless scene in which she decides a powdery almond croissant is the best possible choice while wearing a crisp dark suit right before an important meeting. It is not.

Hijinks aside, it’s Lauren’s path toward connecting with her identity, and figuring out what love, family, and community mean to her, that lies at the core of the film. 

“I think it’s also very important for people to embrace the kind of Australia that is more inclusive, that embraces people’s unique qualities and differences, and not have to conform or fit into a particular way of life to be considered an Australian,” Tapsell told Mashable.

Lee, who read the script on a cold dark day in London in 2017, is perfectly cast as Lauren’s charmingly awkward fiancé, a world away from his uncannily on-point run as Queen’s Brian May in Bohemian Rhapsody.

“I just remember the first time reading it, this idea that it’s never too late to reach out to your family, even if you think it is — and even if it doesn’t go that well, just the act of trying to reach out and send your love to those around you is so important,” Lee told Mashable.

But apart from its energetic cast of human characters, the film presents Australia like you may not have seen it before.

Top End Wedding is a wild ride from Sydney up to Australia’s Top End — the tip of the Northern Territory — through the city of Darwin, the town of Katherine, all over the immense, glorious Kakadu National Park, and ending up on the beautiful Tiwi Islands. Tapsell herself grew up around Kakadu.

It’s not the foreboding, sinister outback international audiences have seen countless times in Australian films like Mad Max, Wolf Creek, or even the 1971 cult thriller Wake in Fright. Instead, it’s a heartfelt love letter to the Territory.

“It was really nice to show the Territory that I grew up in … and that it is incredibly romantic.”

“It does tend to have a lot of negative connotation, like that it’s full of rednecks, and it’s just a dangerous place to go because of all the animals that live there,” Tapsell told Mashable.

“But I think it was really nice to show the Territory that I grew up in, and that it is accessible, that it is an enjoyable place to go, and that it is incredibly romantic.”

With Tapsell and Tyler’s script in hand, director Blair truly celebrates the beauty of the land and the characters’ deeper connection to country.

“We went to six different locations and shot in many countries, so we had the traditional homes of every country up in the Northern Territory and Adelaide on our side, and that was lovely, “said Blair at the Sydney premiere. “But when you get to Kakadu and you go to shoot the sunrise on a Sunday morning, there’s nothing like it.”

However, filming in the Territory is not without its challenges, especially for Lee, who spends a scene knee-deep in a river while Tapsell chats on the bank with another character. 

“It was quite the nerve-wracking day when you see on the call sheet that there’s a ‘croc spotter.’ That kind of focuses the mind,” said Lee at the Sydney premiere. 

Once the film ends up in the stunning Tiwi Islands, the characters’ sense of belonging and identity truly comes to the fore. In fact, the filmmakers involved the locals of the Tiwi Islands so much, that the line between art and reality became slightly blurred.

“I think some of them thought that, not only was it my actual wedding but, I don’t think they understood that we were filming,” said Tapsell at the Sydney premiere.

“Some of my grandmothers, they actually pulled Gwilym aside at one point and went, ‘Listen mate. You hurt her, you got me to deal with.’ … I loved that they were so protective of me.”

Of course, you can’t have a wedding-based rom-com without a dream team of bridesmaids (the excellent Shari Sebbens, Elaine Crombie, and Dalara Williams), and a choreographed dance scene. In fact, it was the hen’s night scene that had Tapsell writing furiously to one Ms. Janet Jackson.

“I love Janet. I had to have ‘Escapade’ in the hen’s night scene,” Tapsell told Mashable. “Of course, Miss Jackson does not normally give her songs out willingly. She often flat-out says no.

“The producers got me to write to her. I was just like, ‘Dear Miss Jackson, I need you to know what a big fan I am. There are so many Aboriginal people that love your music. If you could please have this in a very authentic, shameless Aboriginal film, that would be really, really great.'” 

“We got the call back from Sony, the producers did, and they said, ‘Miss Jackson says yes.’ Well, I lost my mind. I was beside myself.”

Top End Wedding is in cinemas May 2.