A Star Trek Legend Directed Joseph Gordon-Levitt's Disastrous '90s Comedy Flop

Leonard Nimoy did a lot of great work outside of acting in "Star Trek," including directing six films in his lifetime. But while his "Three Men and a Baby" remains a beloved comedy classic and "Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home" was also well-received, Nimoy's directorial efforts also include some absolute duds. Take 1994's "Holy Matrimony," a film that, aside from being a comedy with little to no decent jokes, involves an adult Patricia Arquette marrying a very underaged Joseph Gordon-Levitt.

Backing up a bit: In 1988, Nimoy directed a weird little movie called "The Good Mother," which did a lot more than cause "Star Trek V: The Final Frontier" to be delayed. The Diane Keaton and Liam Neeson-starring drama seemed to be saying that Neeson's character allowing a small child to touch his naked body was okay and even portrayed the protective father of the child as some sort of villain. Needless to say, critics were perplexed at best, but the movie still managed a surprisingly average 54% on Rotten Tomatoes. Unfortunately, Nimoy wasn't done making weird flops with inexplicable plots involving kids after that.

In 1994, the "Star Trek" legend released his final feature-length directorial effort, "Holy Matrimony," in which more strange stuff involving children happens, albeit, in this case, played for laughs ... which is not to say those laughs were forthcoming. Critics didn't let the director get away with that this time, however, and "Holy Matrimony" now lives in infamy as one of two Nimoy-directed films to earn the dreaded 0% critics rating on Rotten Tomatoes. No wonder it was the last movie Nimoy ever called the shots on.

The '90s were full of great comedies, and one of my personal favorites as a kid was 1994's "Blank Check," in which an 11-year-old played by Brian Bonsall becomes a millionaire and buys the house of every '90s kid's dreams. Buena Vista Pictures put out the film, in which the youngster kisses Karen Duffy, who was in her early 30s at the time. Far from being creepy, though, you could sort of see how "Blank Check" was just a light-hearted "What if an 11-year-old boy's fantasy came true" kind of thing. "Holy Matrimony" (also from Buena Vista and also arriving in 1994), on the other hand, was just weird.

The film stars Patricia Arquette as Betsy "Havana" Iggins, who, along with her boyfriend Peter Jacobson (Tate Donovan), robs a county fair. The pair then head to the Canadian Hutterite community where Peter was raised to hide out. Under pressure from the residents, they get married, but after Peter hides the money, he's killed in a car accident. This is where his younger brother, Zeke, comes in.

Zeke is played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who would one day come to be seen by Rian Johnson as a modern Laurence Olivier, but who in 1994 was, well, 12. Zeke is pressured by the community elders into marrying Havana in a levirate marriage to replace his late brother. He isn't exactly happy about it, either, given the fact that she was a horrible influence on Peter. Plus, he's 12 and, as he puts it, would rather "kiss a goat" than his new bride. Meanwhile, Havana desperately searches for the loot Peter buried before he died, only for Zeke to find it and bring it to the elders, who order the pair to return it.

Leonard Nimoy's directing supposedly made "Star Trek III" awkward for William Shatner, but God only knows how awkward "Holy Matrimony" was for, well, everyone involved. Happily, though, the film isn't quite as creepy as it could have been. Still, the bulk of the humor is supposed to derive from a 12-year-old marrying an adult and going through the motions of an adult relationship. As you might expect, it's all just a bit weird — especially since, as Patricia Arquette revealed in a 2019 interview on "The Late Late Show with James Cordon," she was Joseph Gordon-Levitt's first kiss.

To this day, it remains unclear exactly who Leonard Nimoy and Buena Vista had in mind when crafting this tawdry little stinker, but it certainly wasn't critics. As mentioned, "Holy Matrimony" holds a 0% rating on Rotten Tomatoes, and while there are only three reviews from "top critics," all of them are pretty rough. 

Jonathan Romney of The Guardian, for example, described the film as "an unfunny, unholy mess." He also took Nimoy to task for directing "like a black belt in the Vulcan Death Grip." This sentiment was shared by the Financial Times' Stephen Amidon, who chastised the director for churning out a "bland, shallow film that consistently skirts the sexual and religious minefields inherent in the story." Geoff Brown of The Times, meanwhile, surmised that while "Holy Matrimony" was "not as distasteful as the plotline suggests," it still "leaves the stomach churning," whereas Jeff Simon of The Buffalo News simply labeled "Holy Matrimony" an "atrocity." 

In case you need more reasons not to watch it, Letterboxd is full of reviews asking why this movie was even made. Frankly, it's a miracle that the film even grossed the $713,234 that it did in theaters.