Unless you happened to search for “old black and white movies” or “What’s Gloria Estefan up to” right beforehand, Googling “Father of the Bride” will probably get you the 1991 film instead of the movie it was remaking or the version from this very year.
There’s good reason for that – the 1991 film is the only one that deserves to be called a classic!
Even though this starts off the same way as the 1950 movie – with the titular father in his living room after the wedding talking to the audience about how much the wedding put him through the ringer – it’s completely different. We see clearly what the conflicts are – George doesn’t wanna lose his little girl and doesn’t wanna pay a king’s ransom for the wedding, not necessarily in that order – and Steve Martin plays his role infinitely better than Spencer Tracy or anyone else from the first film!
Steve Martin has a gift unlike anyone else I’ve ever seen in Hollywood in that the louder he screams and goes berserk the MORE hapless and impotent he seems! It makes for comic gold if you have the right material, and this movie has it in spades.
We can understand where George is coming from – his barely legal daughter comes home to visit and announces she’s marrying a 26-year-old the family’s never met, and on TOP of that she wants a wedding that costs $250/head (nearly $550/head in 2022 dollars!) – yet everyone thinks George is being unreasonable. No wonder the poor guy snaps and does this.
That’s one of the funniest scenes in movie history. Even as a little kid the math-lover in me realized George could easily find the GCM (greatest common multiple) of 24. That simply means 3 packages of hot dogs and 2 of hot dog buns and he has a perfect match. In fact, because he removes what he deems superfluous buns from 3 different bags, he actually has the exact quantity he would have had if he just bought 2 unopened bags of buns for his (presumably) 3 different packages of hot dogs.
Unlike nowadays when you have to buy 7 bags of buns and 8 bags of dogs!
I’ve made it this far in the review without even mentioning Martin Short’s scene-stealing work as the wedding planner Franck. Yet it’s not just about the comedy. This movie is such a beautiful testament to the magic of weddings, and more importantly thematically, about the love between a father and his little girl.
I personally love this song but I understand why some people find it too schmaltzy.
Imagine, however, the same message being conveyed not in a sappy song but in a ridiculously funny movie. Here you have it!
Bottom Line: Masterpiece.
Up Next: The sequel (to the remake).
Questions? Comments? Feel free to write below.
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