Father of the Bride (1991)

As a general rule I don’t like to talk about comedies here.  Humor is very specific and I don’t know how to tell you something is funny.  You can get into the mechanics of it, of why a joke or situation or whatever may work on a technical level, but that doesn’t necessarily mean you’ll find it amusing.  I think unintentional comedy, like Miami Connection or the many glorious moments in The Specialist (which curiously also happens to take place in Miami), is something you can get more people behind.  Intentional comedy on the other hand is really hard to review.  But I’m making an exception in this case as I go through the Father of the Bride series.  Don’t worry, I won’t get too into trying to sell you on the funny and instead look much more at why these movies work or don’t work otherwise.  Yes, this’ll get a little sappy but I know most of you out there are really softies at heart, even if you don’t want to admit it.  Alright, let’s ring those goddamn wedding bells.

First up is the 1991 remake of Father of the Bride.  Timeline-wise this is actually the third film on the list (fourth overall if you count the short lived TV series from the early 60’s) but it’s the one that everyone knows so I want to use it as a measuring stick to compare the others to.

The plot is very simple.  George Banks’ (Steve Martin (Dirty Rotten Scoundrels)) daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams-Paisley (According to Jim)) comes back from studying for her masters in architecture in Rome and she’s suddenly engaged.  George and his wife Nina (Diane Keaton (The Godfathers)) have to accept the situation and then go on a slightly wacky journey helping to plan and execute the wedding.

As you can guess from the title the film really is about the father.  Telling the entire story from George’s perspective and having the audience sit through his particular emotional roller coaster ride is probably not the first thing you would think of when writing a wedding comedy.  You’d more likely show everyone’s views equally or maybe try to get inside the mind of the bride to be.  But not here and that makes for a much more interesting take on the subject matter.  There’s this journeyman vibe to the father figure in that this is the next chapter in George’s life.  It’s an unexpected one too because Annie not only leaves for Rome single and comes back four months later with a fiancé, but also because even though George has been through his own wedding he seems to be more lost than his own daughter at how to navigate the path.  George still sees Annie as a little kid, something you hear a lot in both movies and real life, so that’s a big part why he has trouble and why it was a good choice to see this story though his eyes.  His relationship with his daughter is more complicated than his daughter’s relationship with him and therefore you have more emotional places you can explore.

The casting is perfect.  Steve Martin does a pretty exceptional job playing the confused and conflicted father.  Diane Keaton tamps her notorious quirkiness down to the point of being virtually nonexistent.  The two play off each other great and actually seem like they could be married.  That’s a very unusual occurrence when you have two big celebrities like that.

Kimberly Williams (no Paisley at the time) also does a nice job as a strong well grounded if somewhat bland daughter.  I’m sure they didn’t want to fill out her character too much because the focus is supposed to be on George.  George Newbern (Scandal) is Bryan MacKenzie, the guy that Annie’s gonna marry.  The filmmakers tried their hardest to make this dude likeable and, at least for me, they succeeded.  Shit, like George Banks I can’t really find anything wrong with him.  Newbern manages to play it a bit nervous but also sure of himself without being cocky in the slightest.  The character is a little stiff but that’s alright because it goes with the 1950’s layer the filmmakers baked in (more on that in a minute).  Also, the fact that Bryan’s supposed to be a computer genius and he’s not portrayed as a total nerd with big glasses, a pocket protector and zero social skills is fucking remarkable for 1991.  This movie is uncharacteristically respectful towards someone with great computer/IT knowledge both in the 90’s and now.

Kieran Culkin (Nowhere to Run) is Matty, Annie’s little brother.  This character may seem inconsequential in the movie but I think he serves an important function.  He’s there to remind George and Nina (as well as the audience) that even though they might be “losing” Annie through marriage they’re not left completely deserted.  They still have their nine year old son to take care of and that’s huge.  Their lives won’t abruptly become sad and lonely when Annie moves out.  He’s the next chapter waiting in the wings (at least he’s supposed to be, the sequel has different plans).

Finally there’s Franck (pronounced Fr-onk, like “honk”) Eggelhoffer, the wedding coordinator.  This character, and probably Martin Short (Captain Ron) in general, is pretty much love him or hate him.  Either you’re gonna find the extremely exaggerated eastern European accent and gregariously flamboyant approach funny or the most irritating thing on the fucking planet.  I think the character’s funny and I’ll leave it at that.

The look of the film holds up shockingly well.  If it weren’t for most of the outfits and haircuts this thing could’ve been shot yesterday.  It has a timeless feel and a big part of that is they avoid most technology throughout.  No cell phones, no computers, there isn’t even a shot of someone watching an old CRT TV (although sharp eyed viewers can spot one in the background with an NES sitting on top).  I’m sure this was all totally accidental but it’s quite amazing nonetheless.   

Let’s discuss the math of some of the shit in the picture.  Annie is 22 and says that’s a year older than when Nina married George.  This means Annie was born in 1969 and George and Nina were married in 1968.  However, when George digs out his old tux he mentions he bought it in 1975.  I’m assuming he means he bought the tux for his own wedding in 1975 but that doesn’t add up with the earlier conversation.  Maybe George and Nina were legally married in 1968 but didn’t have the ceremony until 7 years later.  Or maybe George bought a tux in ’75 for some other event rendering this last paragraph pointless.  I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Annie and Bryan met in Rome while Annie spent four months there.  Let’s say for the sake of argument that they met right at the beginning of that time frame.  When they get back home they get married six months later.  So at most Annie and Bryan have known each other for ten months when they marry.  To me that’s not a very long period of time.  But again, I’ll let you decide for yourself.

Ok, I should really start wrapping this up.  This is one helluva cohesive film and a major reason for that is everything was planned meticulously.  I mean during the wedding ceremony the filmmakers said there was a strict dress code for all the extras and that for the reception scenes even the fucking napkins were deliberated over.  They planned not only a fake wedding but an entire film as if they were throwing a real damn wedding.

There are so many little things too that get brought up casually and come back around again later.  Like Annie mentions she and Bryan want to go for a drive around town and maybe grab a cappuccino.  Later George gifts his daughter a cappuccino maker.  Bryan’s mother tells Nina that her son’s Danish is better than hers.  When Bryan shows up half way through the next scene and is thanked for bringing a bottle of wine to dinner he says “you’re welcome” in Danish.  While George is at work one day a slimy salesman is there pushing knock off designer bags and such to the workers.  When George tears his ’75 tux and needs a new one he buys it from this sales guy later in the movie.  It’s all shit you probably didn’t notice but it’s this kinda detail that makes the film as strong as it is.

If you couldn’t tell, I love this picture.  Yes, I think it’s funny but besides that it’s a touching portrait of a father coping with his daughter falling in love with another man and being taken care of by him.  It was George’s (and Nina’s) job to look after, support and love her.  But now he has to share all of that with someone else, a stranger.    

The thing is George eventually accepts that this is life.  The pattern that gets repeated is George flips out over [insert any event that occurs in the film here], he embarrasses himself because he’s initially unreasonable, Nina talks some sense into him, he finally learns his lesson and lets it go.  It’s important that George goes through that last step otherwise you get something very different (stay tuned).

This is a Norman Rockwell type movie with a rich white family who live in a big gorgeous Southern California house with the white picket fence and the daughter meets the perfect guy to marry and they have a flawless wedding and blah blah blah.  Director Charles Shyer (along with then wife/co-writer/producer/director Nancy Meyers) used that 50’s atmosphere and the fact that fathers always have and will be apprehensive over their daughters getting married as a starting point.  But they modernized it slightly.  They definitely threw in some cartoonish exaggerations (the bank book fiasco, Franck, having three foot tall Matty and his friend park the wedding guests’ cars) to help bring in some of those updates and also to accent the comedy.  But even though this is an extremely corny film on paper it doesn’t come across that way while you’re watching it.  The movie is very genuine and relatable.  I’m not a father or married but through the picture I was able to understand why George acts the way he does and why this is such a crazy event for parents to go through.

So if you haven’t seen it yet you probably should.  All the non-comedy stuff works just as well.  It’s goddamn heartwarming in my opinion.