‘Father of the Bride’ Review: Something is Borrowed and Something Blown in an Unsubtle Remake
variety.comAmy Nicholson The wedding industrial complex has intensified since novelist Edward Streeter wrote his wryly observational satire “Father of the Bride” in 1949.
So, too, has the titular patriarch’s panic that his daughter’s nuptials will expose him as a substandard provider. Director Gary Alazraki’s uneven adaptation — the third in seven decades after Spencer Tracy and Steve Martin reached for the migraine medication — casts Andy Garcia as the beleaguered patron whose ego outshines his child’s simpler desires.
This remake is loud and exaggerated; it’s more hijinks than heart. (Even the swans that bedeviled Martin have been swapped out for synchronized flamingos.) Audiences looking to shed a tear need not RSVP.Garcia plays Billy Herrera, a Cuban exile — not immigrant, he stresses — who has built himself an upper-class life in Miami.
Decades ago, he scaled the ladder of success from carpenter to architect. That struggle is the bedrock of his personality, and by the fifth time screenwriter Matt Lopez has him bring it up, Billy’s family looks ready to hit him with a hammer.
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