Mother of the Bride teases thoughtfulness, but doesn't deliver
Streaming Movie Review - Netflix - rom-com
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When my kids were younger, we would regularly watch the Nickelodeon show, iCarly. It was a relatively silly show about three friends who ran their own web show. I don’t think the phrase “influencer” was popularized yet, but Carly, Sam, and Freddy were some of the original influencers. Of course, I’m old enough to remember when Brooke Shields was the “it girl” as well, so I was interested to see how that might play in Mother of the Bride from director Mark Waters, currently streaming on Netflix.
Emma (Miranda Cosgrove) is a brand ambassador who was just proposed to, so now she is planning her dream wedding. She and her fiance RJ (Sean Teale) invite her mother Lana (Brooke Shields) to meet them in Thailand. When Lana arrives, she meets RJ’s father Will (Benjamin Bratt), only to discover that he is the one who got away, or rather, the one who ghosted her decades earlier. With dresses from elite designers, toasts written by a PR team, photo shoots intended to get the most likes, and a decades-old feud to navigate, will Emma and Lana be able to find time to connect before the wedding?
This movie felt like one missed opportunity after another. The film does focus on Lana, but the sheer volume of physical gags that are not in Shields or Bratt’s wheelhouse overshadowed the moments of true pathos that tried to blossom. I would have loved to see more between Shields and Cosgrove, as their relationship seemed like it could have had something interesting to say, but everything stayed so light as to just seem shallow.
None of the performances felt particularly impressive. Cosgrove is bubbly and cute, but it really did just seem like grown-up iCarly rather than stretching her acting chops at all. There was some genuine chemistry between Shields and Bratt that was never fully capitalized on, moving to the misunderstanding trope before there was a chance to see them settle into something steamier.
Speaking of tropes, this movie didn’t miss a single one. The script by Remington Steele writer Robin Bernheim feels tired and stale at every turn. We have a doctor parent and an influencer adult child who both share the grief of a lost parent, but none of that is explored. There is the lost love angle, but that is undercut by cheap gags like a pickleball to the groin instead of actually examining what that looks like.
Mother of the Bride isn’t an awful movie, it’s just not a good one. Throwing interesting themes in and then ignoring them in favor of unearned laughs is just lazy and this movie chooses the lazy path at every turn. Maybe with a glamorous beach wedding, I’m not supposed to have any kind of high expectations but don’t tease me with something thoughtful and then refuse to follow through. I’d RSVP no to this wedding.
This review originally appeared in The Dominion Post on May 18, 2024.
Yeah I’m a romance queen but no thanks