Sluby panienskie (Maiden Vows) is based on a play by Aleksander Fredro, written at the beginning of the nineteenth century. The original was a comedy, and "Maiden Vows" aims for the same, but a with a twist.
It all starts quite the period piece, with two women going to be married to two young men. But they vow they will never marry, and the men have to do something to get to their hearts. One is the crazily in love Albin (Borys Szyc's seeming to think that he is still in one of the very stupid comedies he is popular for) and the other Gustaw (Maciej Stuhr, more secure and interesting in his role), who is not very interested in marrying. They are helped by Radost (the uber-ubiquitous Robert Wieckiewicz, who, with Marcin Dorociński, must have something on someone on Polish film industry, because if it's not one it's the other, but they seem to appear in all of Polish films). They try their best (not much), but they seem to be incapable of getting the attention of Aniela (Anna Cieslak) and Klara (Marta Zmuda), who do their best to look not very compelling and boring, their acting not going further away than raising their eyebrows. You wouldn't notice they are in the movie if they didn't remind you of it.
But around the minute 13, when Radost is looking at the girls having a bath in the river, something weird happens... He takes out a phone, and calls them. And here is when all semblance to a period romantic comedy ends, as we will have these kind of interstices every few minutes, with more or less a jarring result.
The movie follows the typical romantic comedy structure, with balls, with "funny" moments, with duels... and a car, the actors having a break drinking coffee... Even if it tries to be kind of tongue-in-cheek, it is not very original in one or the other department (the jumps to the non-movie become quite the head-scratcher) and it becomes quite of dull after a while, as it loses the opportunity of bringing Aleksander Fredro's play to life. It looks nice, but it feels empty.
A cellphone doesn't make something original or funny, Filip Bajon. But points for trying.
