Stream It Or Skip It?

This Polish language film adds to Netflix’s large library of international content. But is this comedy of errors worth streaming?

The Gist: Mirek (Tomasz Karolak) and Regina (Agnieszka Suchora) are the managers of a local dairy factory, which is on the cusp of being closed. When their daughter Maja (Natalia Iwanska) announces she’s engaged, they decide the way to save the factory is for her to get married there in order to give the CEO what he wants. The only problem is that her fiancee Milosz (Gamou Fall) is Black and Mirek is an open racist.

What Will It Remind You Of?: In broad strokes, the film is reminiscent of Meet the Parents, chronicling the first meeting of a family and their son-in-law.

Performance Worth Watching: Gamou Fall as Milosz exhibits a patience and kindness that the family he’s marrying into does not deserve.

Memorable Dialogue: “My daughter is not going anywhere – definitely not to Africa. She’s not vaccinated!” The father leans on low-hanging racism, and you can’t help but laugh at how uncultured his insults are.

Sex and Skin: Milosz and Maja secretly sneak away to spend a night together, but we don’t see anything explicit.

Our Take: Is it possible to like a movie in which one of the central characters is racist, sexist, and has altogether zero redeeming qualities? In my estimation, no.

At the heart of Death Before the Wedding is a cultural conflict as the only daughter of a proud dairy factory manager brings home a Black man as her fiance. Not only is the father openly racist towards his future son-in-law Milosz, he also treats his wife like she has no brains and no purpose other than to serve him, and thinks he can control every aspect of his daughter. His dairy factory is on the brink of closing, and having them get married there is inexplicably the only way to save it.

Mirek eventually comes around to accepting Milosz, but it’s hard to root for a character that only changes his bigoted ways because he personally benefits from it—especially in 2025, given the state of the world today. If Mirek had even one redeeming quality, it would make this easier to swallow, but he’s a menace to everyone in his life. Now I’m not Polish, so I don’t have insight into the cultural norms of the country, but it’s hard to imagine a Western country still being so steeped in their whiteness that they act like they didn’t know Black people existed outside of Africa. It’s more than naivety, it’s openly hostile.

The only bright spot is the relationship between the mother and daughter. Regina has always been subservient in her marriage, despite having knowledge and skills that would benefit their family, and her daughter Maja is the only one who lets her see her potential.

This could have been a fun comedy of errors about being exposed to and understanding a culture and way of life you’ve never witnessed. But couching it in overt racism takes all of the charm away from the story. All I wanted was for Milosz (and Maja) to run as far away from her family as possible, which is quite literally the opposite of what your audiences should want from a story like this.

Our Call: SKIP IT. The racism of the central character undercuts any humor from the film.

Radhika Menon (@menonrad) is a TV-obsessed writer based in New York City. Her work has appeared on Paste Magazine, Teen Vogue, Vulture and more. At any given moment, she can ruminate at length over Friday Night Lights, the University of Michigan, and the perfect slice of pizza. You may call her Rad.