September 30, 2020
"Father of the Bride" (Charles Shyer,1991) was a remake of a 1950 film of the same title. In the 90s remake, overprotective father George Banks (Steve Martin) could not come to terms with the fact that his precious daughter Annie (Kimberly Williams) was about to get married to Bryan Mackenzie (George Newbern). The lavish plans by the quirky European wedding coordinator Franck Eggelhoffer (Martin Short) drove George even crazier.
In the 1995 sequel, George underwent a midlife crisis when Annie was pregnant with her first baby. Then things became crazier when George's wife Nina (Diane Keaton) also announced that she was also having a baby. Franck was back in the picture as the coordinator of their joint baby showers and designing the nursery in his particular style. Annie gave birth to her baby boy named George, while Nina gave birth to her second daughter Megan.
Last September 25, 2020, while the world is still reeling from the Coronavirus pandemic, a third installment of this beloved film series was released for free on YouTube on Netflix's channel. The short film (only about 25 minutes) was shot and edited together in Zoom meeting style where each actor was in his own screen from his own location. According to the introduction by Reese Witherspoon, this was for the benefit of Chef José Andrés's World Central Kitchen, a charitable organization which provides meals to victims of natural disasters.
There was a montage of clips from the first two movies to set the mood and reintroduce everybody before things get going. Matty Banks (Kieran Culkin) called the members of his family together for a Zoom meeting. Nina were there first as usual, and just a little later, Annie. Megan (Florence Pugh) is now 25, as well as her birthday twin George (Ben Platt). The ever-neurotic senior George joined in with his litany of Coronavirus precautions.
Everyone noted that Matty had shaved off his quarantine beard, and now he announced to everyone the reason why. His planned wedding to his fiancee Rachel (Alexandra Shipp) had been indefinitely postponed because of the current health crisis. He decided he could not wait any longer and wanted to invite her to marry him right there and then -- on Zoom. Rachel had just gotten off her duty at the hospital and was completely unaware of Matty's big plan.
It was really great to see the original cast back together and looking great, having great rapport with each other. Steve Martin had not been in any major motion picture or TV show lately, and judging from how he did here, you'd wonder why he was not so active as an actor anymore. Diane Keaton had that effusive motherly optimism and excitement about her, as delightful as ever. Kimberly Williams was as beautiful as ever at 49, though in contrast, George Newbern now looked much older than their 6-year age difference.
Kieran Culkin was only 9 years old in the first Father of the Bride, and 13 in the second. It was in his character of Matty that we see how 25 years had passed between the last movie and this special online show. There would be a flashback montage narrated by Steve Martin in the latter minutes which was an emotional highlight for fans of the series. Of course, the cast reunion would not be complete without an appearance of Martin Short as the still-flamboyant Franck, who was still as annoying as ever with that outlandish accent of his.
The new members of the cast, Florence Pugh and Ben Platt, fit right in comfortably as youngest Banks with their bubbly personalities. From the dialogue, Platt's Georgie was a musician, and of course, he would wow us with his talent before this show ended. The glamorous Alexandra Shipp did not look at all like a post-duty doctor on her Zoom screen. She looked positively radiant in her pink sweater in that nice hotel room where she was supposed to be on isolation. Veteran actor Robert de Niro would make a surprise appearance as James, the titular father of the bride in this installment.
Nancy Meyer, co-writer from the first two films, returned to both write and direct this special reunion short film, and she was still very much in tune with the spirit of the original series, despite the multiple pandemic references that pepper the script in this one. Now whether Netflix will make another full-length feature with this cast, that remains to be seen. But with the 2M views of this nostalgic and heartwarming YouTube video, they sure whet up public interest in the Banks family all over again. 7/10.
No comments:
Post a Comment