FATHER OF THE BRIDE
A film review by Mark R. Leeper
Copyright 1991 Mark R. Leeper
Capsule review: Mix two parts wedding-planning comedy, two parts sweet sentiment, and one part slapstick comedy, and you get a sugary, light holiday confection. Steve Martin gives away his daughter and a lot of money at the same time. An enjoyable family film. Rating: +1 (-4 to +4).
Steve Martin, who showed us the hopes and fears of being a father of younger children in PARENTHOOD is continuing on that theme with an older daughter in his update of 1950's FATHER OF THE BRIDE. He has inherited Spencer Tracy's philosophizing but little of Tracy's dignity. This is a film that pulls in at least three different directions at once as if it just was not sure what it wanted to be when it grew up. It tries first and foremost to be a touching sentimental story of a father coming to terms with the loss to another man of a daughter whom he loves very much. At the same time it wants to be a sort of MR. BLANDINGS BUILDS HIS DREAM HOUSE for weddings--a film about a simple man discovering how complex and expensive it is today to put together a wedding. Then Steve Martin's roots are in physical and slapstick comedy, so this comedy pulls in that direction also. The film simply does not work as all three and the physical comedy is certainly what should have been cut.
The story is simple enough to be called trite. George Banks (played by Steve Martin) talking to the camera tells about his daughter's wedding which has just taken place and about the five months since his daughter (played by Kimberly Williams) returned from Rome and announced she had fallen in love and intended to get married. Martin reacts with anger and with distrust of his daughter's choice (played by George Newbern). We follow the parents to their first meeting with their daughter's future in-laws. George turns this meeting into an embarrassment big enough to last a lifetime.
Then there are the wedding arrangements themselves. All arrangements are made through the services of Franck (played by Martin Short), a somewhat swishy European with an impenetrable accent. (I rather hope this film does not get shown in China. The average Chinese does not earn enough in eight months to pay the per-guest cost of this wedding.) There are hassles over cost; there is the obligatory lovers' tiff. There are wedding preparations. Then the wedding begins and the film loses almost all of its humor and turns to sentiment so thick you can cut it with a knife.
Between FATHER OF THE BRIDE and BEAUTY AND THE BEAST, it seems that Disney is banking very heavily on sentiment this Christmas-time. But the characters in FATHER OF THE BRIDE are cartoonish and two-dimensional. The real humanity is in the characters in BEAUTY AND THE BEAST. Steve Martin and Diane Keaton make a likable married couple in the live-action film, but they do not have much human complexity. Kimberly Williams, as their daughter, is certainly attractive and is as sensual playing basketball as Nastassia Kinski is dancing. But this Christmas film is like a chocolate Easter egg. It is sugary sweet around the outside and very light because it is really hollow. It is worth seeing once. I rate it a +1 on the -4 to +4 scale.
Mark R. Leeper
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