My Mother’s Wedding, 2025.
Directed by Kristin Scott Thomas.
Starring Scarlett Johansson, Sienna Miller, Emily Beecham, Kristin Scott Thomas, Freida Pinto, Mark Stanley, Joshua McGuire, Samson Kayo, Thibault de Montalembert, Sindhu Vee, James Fleet, Roger Ashton-Griffiths, Ian Dunnett Jnr, and Giulio Berruti.
SYNOPSIS:
Three sisters return to their home for the third wedding of their twice-widowed mother. But the mother and daughters are forced to revisit the past and confront the future, with help from a colorful group of unexpected wedding guests.
Similar to attending a real wedding without a clue who 85% of the attendees are, co-writer/director/co-star Kristin Scott Thomas’ My Mother’s Wedding is packed with characters that, in theory, viewers are supposed to connect with.
Based on aspects of Thomas’ life (which, unfortunately, gives the film a rancid stench of ill advised vanity), the movie (written alongside John Micklethwait) uses her stand-in Diana’s third marriage as a means to not only get together her three daughters, Royal Navy ship captain Katherine (Scarlett Johansson), semi-successful Hollywood actress Victoria (Sienna Miller), and Georgina (Emily Beecham), the most average of the three working as a nurse and coming home to her family, but an opportunity to break open new and old wounds stemming from their childhood and present. In turn, all of this threatens to ruin the countryside wedding while serving as an act of disrespect toward third husband Geoff (James Fleet), a boring birdwatcher who can’t compare to their other fathers, who tragically died in combat.
Viewers are dropped into the wedding with practically zero setup or character establishment. Even the introduction to the film is a 60-second montage (and that’s being generous), placing on-screen text over each of the three sisters to tell you who they are and what they do for work, without ever letting one get to know them before traveling to the wedding. It only gets worse from there, introducing more characters, ranging from old flames to children and other friends and relatives, making for an unsalvageable mess of character interactions that aren’t given the chance to be interesting or engaging, considering that 90% of the movie comes across as homework trying to keep who they are, their dilemmas, and dynamics straight.
Aside from having baggage with their mom, each of the three sisters also has their drama going on that the film is concerned with, but never has a chance to dramatize since, as one can probably tell fully, there is so, so much happening here. Katherine is undergoing some commitment issues toward her partner, Jack (Freida Pinto), which Diana pushes back against as having the right to gay marriage but not capitalizing on it, as if such equal rights activism was for nothing. Victoria is frustrated that none of the good men want to talk to a famous actress. Meanwhile, Georgina has hired an investigator to spy on the husband she is justifiably suspicious of having affairs with. All of these sisters have children and varying degrees of relationship strength between them.
There are also brief black-and-white sketch art flashbacks to Katherine’s childhood, typically showing a state of conflict and sadness, whether it be from losing one father or having her mom’s second husband asking if she would be okay taking a new last name. That exchange in particular also turns out to be a source of heated drama once Victoria finally learns about it. At the very least, the bits about Georgina and her likely cheating husband bring forth a few laughs and will likely be the most relatable aspect for anyone who watches this. Everything else is shallow and predicated on viewers caring way too much about characters they have no reason to care about, or coming into the film inexplicably invested in the past of Kristin Scott Thomas.
It would also be unfair to say that My Mother’s Wedding is a disaster; the ensemble is doing what they can to find something real within the characters they are playing and sisterhood, but that’s a nearly impossible task given there are several stories crammed into a 90-minute running time. Serviceable performances are unable to offset any of that. Sure, the countryside environment is pleasant, but that doesn’t stop this from being a wedding one can’t wait to escape from. Even then, the film unnecessarily goes on for another 15 minutes. A more appropriate title would be Kristin Scott Thomas’ misfire debut.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★
Robert Kojder
