Mother of the Bride
Mother of the Bride
Mother of the Bride: In recent times, there have been a surge of rather extravagant destination wedding themed rom-coms. Fashions seem to change quickly, and two years ago it was all about “Ticket to Paradise” with Clooney/Roberts and also “Shotgun Wedding” with J.Lo and Duhamel. More recently “Anyone But You” with Sweeney and Powell came out to distribution accompanied by some good reviews and good box office earnings.
Thus it was just a question of how long it would take before milder pacifist turns on more recursive fan fics that much coveted even down to Netflix. Enter ‘Mother of the Bride. It is a movie directed by Emily Miller and features Brooke Shields, Miranda Cosgrove, and Benjamin Bratt.
It is as if in detective stories new lovers never complain of lack of originality: for some reason, America has put on a spree of remaking remakes commenting this one in particular “gosh – what a mess. It collects all the pieces from nicer movies and gets them together with some very thin plot and Atlas movie, which is a movie only by definition of the Mother of the Bride.
Typically, I enjoy the movies produced by Brad Krevoy and Steve Stabler who collaborated under the banner Motion Picture Corporation of America with Netflix. I have seen both of them “The Knight Before Christmas” and “A Castle for Christmas” ISPG – & Shields ACTING CU on more occasions that I care to admit. For goodness sakes, I even praised the Lindsay Lohan’s “Christmas Falling for Christmas” or “Irish Wish” on this very blog.
Mark Waters is respected in the field and has even pointed the first Mean Girls and directed movies like Freaky Friday or Just Like Heaven. I guess even his poorly performed pictures such as Head over Heels or Ghosts of Girlfriends Past count as one of the most enjoyable legal offenses.
So where did everything I just discussed go wrong? The cliched script from Robin Bernheim, who is credited among the writing and producing team of Netflix ‘The Princess Switch’ Trilogy, manages to put its cast in shallow waters.
Shields is appropriately cast in the role of Lana, a reputed geneticist with over some romantic obsessiveness. This undercurrent of what borderline neurotic slight screw-ball-comedy was something she was working on since her periods of “suddenly Susan,” a sitcom.
However, the full on chassis spinning came when she finds out that her daughter Emma (an awfully dry Miranda Cosgrove) is scheduled to wed RJ (Sean Teale) who happens to be the son of Will (Benjamin Bratt sadly stripped of his charm) who broke her heart in college.
Rachael Harris as the ‘aunt’ has her usual role, a gyrating wet cougarette to Lana’s character, with one highlight including Mary Koslosky turning in something beefier than lazier, “Is that a Hemsworth hottie?” Michael McDonald and Wilson Cruz are the gay couple who are onscreen only to be sassy and give narration, for they all are happily married to each other.
Emma is a lifestyle influencer, already signing over six figures contract with some mega-corp, which in our case has bought her wedding in order to advertise in Phuket Thailand their resort.
As much as there is talk on the Instagram photo shoots and designer dress fittings, the film never gets into the business side of things. What could have been a brilliant attack on the whole system of selling out one’s life, right up to the days that are supposed to be the most sacred, instead becomes a futile lesson on how to manage one’s work and family.
This theme is so threadbare, it would rather make ‘ 27 Dresses’ seem didactic. The only one who appears to be on this satirical page is Tasneem Roc, who plays a rather psychotic brand manager named Camala, the only Light in the film but one who graciously furnishes it with its few meager attempts at humor.
You may have noticed I have not even mentioned the groom yet. That is because he may as well not be in the film. His character is so underdeveloped that he is like one of those Instagram sighing boyfriends who dutifully snaps a few portraits of their model girl friends’ Instagram feeds without ever being visible. Only he doesn’t even do that! Some vague background monologues explain his profession and how he met and captured Emma’s heart.
Even so, it is so irrelevant by the time we come to the actual wedding with so many characters that one not only forgets who is the groom but also why he is being wedded in the first place. What do these two admire each other for? How does he earn his keep? Why exactly does his father gift them a luxury two hundred million dollar condominium in the heart of Tribeca, if they met, worked and loved in London? The script clearly would simply have to consist of more than just stock characters to address any of those concerns.
Perhaps a movie this stupid is all this sub sub genre deserves taking into account that fact that none of these films, even the ones that I like, has even an iota of self-awareness about the extreme wealth and classism inherent in a destination wedding for which you must fly people all the way across the world.
Perhaps there is a twisted way in which one could argue that even this film’s hollowness carries a certain merit.
Such great talent practically dripping off Shields’s face deserves a much better outcome than this. In the end, Mother of the Bride is the low point for nearly all of those who participated in the production.
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- Genre: Comedy, Drama, Romance
- Country: United States
- Director: Mark Waters
- Cast: Brooke Shields, Miranda Cosgrove, Benjamin Bratt
