Mother of the Bride, 2024.
Directed by Mark Waters.
Starring Brooke Shields, Miranda Cosgrove, Benjamin Bratt, Rachael Harris, Sean Teale, Chad Michael Murray, Wilson Cruz, Michael McDonald, Tasneem Roc, and Dalip Sondhi.
SYNOPSIS:
Lana’s daughter Emma returns from London and announces that she’s getting married next month. Things become more complicated when Lana learns that the man who stole Emma’s heart is the son of the man who broke hers years ago.
Mother of the Bride feels like a vacation for everyone involved, not just because it centers on a destination wedding in Thailand. Anything grounded or human that real people could relate to regarding relationships or marriage is thrown out the window for cringe slapstick gags and shallow, unlikable characters who learn their lessons too late to care. For clarification, the entire wedding is also planned in conjunction with the bride-to-be’s brand ambassador hotel resorts marketing position (a six-figure salary that she somehow stumbled into), meaning that, as a film, this is more about sightseeing and tourism attraction than characterization.
Now, maybe you are reading this and thinking, that’s the point, and that director Mark Waters (with a screenplay from Robin Bernheim) has crafted a narrative about social media and work having such a stranglehold on our lives that they become barriers to bonding experiences even during a wedding. Merely gesturing at the theme isn’t enough, not when the majority of the film is spent going through the motions of the titular mother (Brooke Shields) falling back in love with an old flame (Benjamin Bratt delivering the only charismatic, somewhat respectable performance here)), who happens to be the father of the groom.
After Will (Bratt) broke Lana’s (Shields) heart when they were younger, she closed herself off from romance and put everything into becoming a world-renowned geneticist, something that you wouldn’t know since that outside of the one scene that requires her to act like a scientist; there are no traces of that in the character. Following that success, she fell in love and gave birth to Emma (Miranda Cosgrove), primarily raising her as a single mother following a tragic accident that took her father’s life.
It’s also clear that the daughter takes after her mother in the workaholic department, perhaps because it’s all she has learned from their relationship. It would also be nice if Emma’s job weren’t so vapid, meaning that her character arc consists of learning about the importance of spending time with family, which is common sense. However, Emma comes across as a spoiled brat far too involved with social media and being a brand ambassador to the point where it’s less about finding moderation and balance in life and more that this character is obnoxious. What exactly is there to relate for the common person regarding a wedding about filthy rich people with rich problems?
Instead, Mother of the Bride is concerned with lowbrow, insultingly bad humor, such as characters accidentally falling into bodies of water, security cameras catching them streaking while trying to recapture some of their youthful glory days, or eye-rolling wrenches thrown into the mix during the last 20 minutes that are impossible to take seriously if one has ever seen a romantic comedy before. It’s an embarrassing movie on all accounts, shot like a TV travelogue commercial encouraging viewers to take a vacation. There is subtext worth exploring here, but the filmmakers are content, perhaps even proud, taking the laziest possible route.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check here for new reviews, follow my Twitter or Letterboxd, or email me at MetalGearSolid719@gmail.com
