Plot: A father comes to grips with his daughter’s upcoming wedding through the prism of multiple relationships within a big, sprawling Cuban-American clan.
Review: Father of the Bride is a property that has been a triumphant crowd-pleaser for over seventy years. Based on the 1949 bestselling novel, the original version starred Spencer Tracy and Elizabeth Taylor in a traditional comedy that garnered multiple Oscar nominations including one for Best Picture. The 1991 remake starred Steve Martin, Martin Short, and Diane Keaton and became a pop culture hit spawning a sequel and a pandemic-set reunion short. That Nancy Myers-penned remake was a bit zanier than the original but maintained the core story of a father struggling to let his baby girl become an adult with her own life. The story is being updated again with a predominantly Hispanic cast led by Andy Garcia and Gloria Estefan. With some twists to the familiar formula, the new Father of the Bride is every bit as heartwarming as the prior versions and serves as a timely update
In this new version, the titular father is Billy Herrera (Andy Garcia), an architect who never shies away from telling his story about coming to America from Cuba and building himself from nothing to becoming one of the most renowned architects in Miami. Married to Ingrid (Gloria Estefan), Billy is father to Sofia (Adria Arjona), an attorney living in New York, and Cora (Isabel Merced), a struggling fashion designer who lingers in her sister’s shadow. Right from the outset, we learn that the relationship between Billy and Ingrid is struggling and the couple are preparing to divorce when Sofia announces her engagement to Adan Castillo (Diego Boneta). With his personal life crumbling and his beloved daughter on the verge of leaving from under his wing, Billy struggles to reconcile his past with his future.
This update does shift the ethnicity of the main characters but retains the elements that made the 1991 film such a hit, namely the slightly kooky wedding planner. Replacing Martin Short’s flamboyant character is SNL breakout Chloe Fineman as Natalie Vance. Vance is an influencer and very much the embodiment of the stereotypical Millennial which rubs Billy’s more traditional values the wrong way. Billy also struggles with his future son-in-law Adan. Adan, who is Mexican, is the man Billy sees as taking his daughter from him. The generational and cultural divide widens when Billy learns that Adan’s father Hernan (Pedro Damian) is one of the wealthiest men in Mexico. While Ingrid is far more accepting of Sofia and Adan’s wishes, Billy continues to rigidly push back against his entire family who seem to be leaving him behind.
Over the course of the film, this Father of the Bride makes no major attempts to hide that it is a remake of a familiar story. But, with the divorce element and the heavier focus on the clashing of the in-laws, this movie makes better use of character-based humor instead of the slapstick that Steve Martin and Martin Short were so adept at. In many ways, this film benefits from Andy Garcia and Gloria Estefan as the leads. Both actors have more experience in dramatic roles and they play these characters with an earnest realism that makes them far more relatable to the casual viewer. Even when Garcia plays Billy as stubborn and difficult in his reluctance to accept that his daughter is getting married, he never comes across as mean but just a heartbroken man dealing with emotions he is not used to expressing.
Written by Matt Lopez and directed by Gaz Alazraki, Father of the Bride plays with many divides between characters including romantic (Billy and Ingrid), cultural (Cuban and Mexican), religious (Catholic and Athiest), generational (Baby Boomers and Millennials), and many more. The Latin cultural elements from dance to music and more are prominent in the story but this never feels like a stereotypical cash grab to being diverse for the sake of just being diverse. The story feels authentic and has a reason for being told, even if it never really does anything truly different than the versions that came before it. Despite not being as whimsical as the 1991 film, the 2022 Father of the Bride only feels tone-deaf in the fact that these characters are all filthy rich so hearing them complain about anything in a time of a recession and global economic challenges feels a bit poorly timed. Still, it retains an air of fairy tale fun that makes it enjoyable to watch.
The new Father of the Bride is a great example of the types of movies that work well on streaming platforms and don’t need a theatrical window. In 1991, this was the type of movie that would do well on the big screen and now cannot compete with big-budget spectacles. But, movies like this deserve to be seen. Rather than feeling like it is trying too hard to be culturally sensitive (an element that is key to Chloe Fineman’s hilarious performance), this Father of the Bride is proof of how a movie can be inclusive and authentic when it is made by writers, filmmakers, and actors who are representative of what we see on screen. Father of the Bride surprised me by being a truly nice movie with a welcome return for Andy Garcia who gives some of his best work in a long time. If you want a light, fun, and enjoyable retro throwback comedy, you can’t do much better than walking this movie down the aisle.
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