Ceremony is the directorial debut feature for Max Winkler and it is a pretty impressive comedic debut, featuring a wonderful lead performance by Michael Angarano.

The film follows Sam, Angarano, and his “best friend” Marshall as they head out of the city to the country to a beachside vacation spot seemingly for the weekend.  Sam motivations slowly reveal to not be entirely what Marshall thinks as Sam to shoves them into a fancy affair going on at a local mansion.  Sam quickly recognizes a woman, Zoe, and their past seems to be quite the complicated one.  Taking things even further, Zoe, is about to be wed to her documentarian fiancée in just three days.  As Sam tries and find his place with Zoe the two friends embark on an odd a bizarre adventure among an eccentric group of individuals.

Now, any fans of Wes Anderson will instantly gel with the material as his work seems to have a heavy influence on the director.  Being roughly the same age as Winkler I can see why that is and I am not really complaining.  The film’s first act moves blazingly fast in a whirlwind of information as we hop on board with Sam and Marshall’s adventure.  We are Marshall though, discovering and trying to figure out what the hell is going on with Sam and where the hell he is leading us.  As we get to the party we meet a laundry list of interesting characters, none more so than Lee Pace as Whit Coutell.

Pace plays the documentarian and fiancée of Zoe with such joy and glee that also seems to be having a bit of fun with Richard Branson.  The rituals and traditions of the house are just bizarre and hilarious and I couldn’t get enough of him.  The work might be Pace’s best to date and he is totally worthy checking out the film for.  Matching him acting wise is Angarano.  I never knew this kid had it in him, even though I have always liked him, but man does he run away with this film.  His character, Sam, is a complex and cocky guy that is a lot of front for his gooey insides.  A romantic at heart, Sam writes children stories and is desperate to connect with Zoe all while bringing down and picking back up Marshall all in one scene.  Marshall is played wonderfully as well by Reece Thompson who has done some great work before in Rocket Science and Assassination of a High School President.  I can’t wait till he breaks out of the indie game and gets a shot in a Hollywood film because he is yet again great here.  Angarano and Thompson both dazzle here and Winkler deserves a lot of credit for getting some great work out of his leads.  Rounding out the cast is the bizarre and funny Jake M. Johnson as Zoe’s brother, and Uma Thurman as Zoe herself.  Johnson has been hilarious as of late popping up in a lot of supporting roles and he doesn’t disappoint here as the perpetually drunk brother of the bride.  Thurman on the other hand is fine here as the conflicted and kind bride but I can’t help but feel like her role, along with the other women, were a bit underwritten and far less interesting to all the aforementioned boys.

Beyond the cast and the opening act, the film works rather swimmingly with only a couple problems to talk of.  The lack of knowing what Sam and Zoe’s background you could argue as both a positive and a negative and I am not sure which camp I fall in.  The underwritten and less fun women were a tad disappointing but not a deal breaker.  The film’s final scenes will infuriate some but this viewer is ok with the ambiguity that I think serves as a sweet final note of our characters coming of age.  One of the best bits of the film is actually a film within the film, Whit’s currently in the edit new documentary, which is just a great send up of pretentious filmmakers everywhere; and Pace kills it.

In the end, Ceremony was a joy from start to finish.  It does fizzle a bit towards the end, but it is hard to live up to the frantic and hilarious first act.  The cast is mostly great and never dull with Angarano and Pace turning in probably their best work yet.  Fans of Wes Anderson must certainly check this out but I think it is a bit more accessible and less quirky then his films.  The general audience will latch on to the magnetic Angarano and this is one story I look forward to visiting again down the line; a fine comedy.

Ceremony is a B+